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THE BEST OF PETER McARTHUR

 

 

THE BEST OF

PETER McARTHUR

 

 

 

Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited / Toronto / Vancouver / 1967

 

 

A RURAL JOURNAL

 

 

THE BOOK CURE

I have no hesitation in recommending the book cure to everyone. Nowadays anyone can write a book, and most everyone does. The mistake is in regarding the book as a literary venture. What you should do is to make a pad of paper and a lead pencil your father confessor and ease your mind of its worries. When the book is done, you can send it out into the wilderness as the Israelites sent the scapegoat—bearing your sins with it. Then you can make a fresh start. If you don’t want to publish it—though publication seems necessary to complete absolution—you can tie a stone to it and throw it into the lake, or do it up in a parcel and leave it for someone to find, just as boys used to do with neat parcels in which they placed pebbles on which they had rubbed their warts—hoping in that way to rid themselves of warts. I know there are some old-fashioned people who will be shocked at this levity in speaking of books, but they should waken up to the fact that since the coming of the wood-pulp era no particular merit attaches to writing a book. And if books can be given a medicinal value to take the place of their old-time literary value, why shouldn’t we recognize the fact? Anyway, the writing of a book put me in the frame of mind to parody Sir Sidney Smith and exclaim: “Fate cannot harm me, I have had my say.”

I have told all this merely to explain the joyous mood induced by the writing of the book. Having finished my task, I felt not only up-to-date with my work, but up-to-date with life. It is the ambition of every man—whether he confesses it or not—to get even with the world. The world is forever defeating us and defrauding us of our hopes. So let us have our say about it, turn over a new leaf, and make a fresh start. When I got up this morning

There was no feeling of responsibility about anything, and I could go to work in a carefree frame of mind. That made me realize how carefree all nature is, and how carefree life might be if we did not allow ourselves to become so much entangled with its affairs. Just because I had arranged to free myself from all other responsibilities while doing my task, I suddenly found myself free from responsibilities and in the only true holiday humour. It is true there was work to do, but I did not feel any responsibility. My first chore was to churn, but I was not responsible for the flavour and texture of the butter. It was my part to make the barrel churn revolve with a rhythmical plop! plop! plop! and when the butter came I had nothing more to do with it. By that time the heavy dew had dried from the sheaves, and the business of hauling in the wheat was commenced. Though I had an interest in the wheat, I was not responsible for it, and could pitch the sheaves without worrying. The mood left by having poured all my problems into a book was apparently the same as that enjoyed by Kipling’s devil when he “blew upon his nails, for his heart was free from care.”

Along in the forenoon a thunderstorm began to gather in the west, and I was in the right mood to realize what a carefree and irresponsible storm it was. Even though it was harvest time, this storm was not obliged to take any thought about what it was doing. It didn’t have to pick the just from the unjust and distribute the rain as a reward—or punishment. It rained on both alike. Though it was such a carefree storm, I confessed to a feeling of relief when I saw it sheering off to the south. There are all kinds of just and unjust men living down that way, and though they may not have wanted rain any more than we did, it was no part of my business to worry about them. It was enough for us to gather in our own crop and be thankful that, after all, the Hessian fly had left us a crop worth gathering.

When the storm had rumbled away, the sun came out, and it was certainly a carefree sun. It gave its stimulating warmth and heat to the weeds as freely as to the crops. If man wanted to coddle some plants for his own use, the sun was perfectly willing to do its part—but it did its part just as freely and irresponsibly for the grass and the weeds. In spite of the philosophers and teachers, nature seemed very irresponsible today. She had been irresponsible in sowing her seeds and in promoting their growth, and it was quite evident that she would be equally irresponsible in her work of harvesting. The free and irresponsible winds would blow the seeds fitted with wings and parachutes to every point of the compass and let them fall where they would. The free streams would carry others to hospitable shores or would leave them to rot in the lakes or even in the ocean. Other seeds provided with spines and hooks would cling to our clothing or to the wool of the sheep and in that way be given a wholly irresponsible distribution. Nothing in nature seemed to be burdened with responsibility or care or remorse or worry or ambition or any of the things with which we fret our lives. Being in a wholly irresponsible frame of mind, I could not help wondering if man has not gone woefully astray in making himself responsible for so much. Perhaps we have not interpreted properly that text about being our brother’s keeper. Certainly our brothers seldom feel grateful to us when we concern ourselves with their affairs and try to make them realize that we regard ourselves as their keepers. As a rule they resent our interference, and our efforts do little good either to them or to us. Perhaps we should learn something from the irresponsibility of nature to guide us in our dealings with our fellow-men.

Anyone who cared to write a book about it could probably show that most of the wars and afflictions that have come on the world are due to attempts made by incompetent people to be their brothers’ keepers. They start great wars to stop little ones, cause great evils by trying to remedy little ones, and otherwise make nuisances of themselves to the limit of their power. Why don’t these people take to writing books instead of trying to set things right? Writing the books would free their surcharged spirits, and the world could go its way without bothering to read what they wrote. The more I think of it the more convinced I am that the writing of books would cure a lot of our evils—chiefly because it would help to rid the people who wrote the books of their feeling of responsibility for other people and their affairs. The fact that they had set down their views in fair type would ease their consciences and enable them to go about the ordinary little matters of their own lives in a carefree way. The book cure for our personal and collective troubles is hereby seriously recommended. And it is especially recommended to anyone wanting to enjoy a holiday. You can’t enjoy a holiday if you are worrying about your business in life. So write a book about it and get even with the world. Then you can enjoy a holiday even while going on with your work.

LOVE OF THE LAND

Now let me confess. Often and often I have thought of writing something about the love of the land, but was restrained by the feeling that it was too intimate and personal to be exposed for the entertainment of the public. Goodness knows I have gossiped about almost everything in the most shameless way, but there was something about love of the land that seemed too sacred to reveal even to intimate friends. But finding that my friend is homesick for the farm on which he was born, and about which he learned at his father’s knee, I am emboldened to hang my heart on my sleeve and talk to those of my readers who have felt the love of the land and know what it means. I have the good fortune to be living on the farm on which I was born—the farm which my father cleared. Although I was born too late to take a hand in the work of clearing, I learned the history of every acre before an open fireplace many years ago. The history of the clearing of the land, the first crops, the names and characters of the horses and cows on the place, are so interwoven with my youthful recollections that I seem to remember them all as if I had taken part in the battle with the wilderness myself, and had shared in all its triumphs and sorrows. Something of this farm struck a tendril into my heart which neither time nor distance could break. It is the only spot on earth that ever gave me the feeling of home. Even after being away for years I have sat down in New York or London, England, and have been as homesick for this farm as a little boy who makes his first journey away from his mother’s side. At any time I could close my eyes and see the quiet fields, and I would wonder what crops they were sown to. At all times it was my place of refuge, and, when I finally returned to it, it was with a feeling that my wanderings had ended, and that I could settle down and enjoy life where I belonged.

The trouble with little people is that if we are not familiar with their particular form of ignorance, they think we know nothing.

MY FRIENDS, THE TREES

Near the house there is a sturdy oak tree that I always think of as one of the oldest of my friends. I grew up with it. Of course that is not exactly true, for I stopped growing many years ago, while it kept on growing, and it may keep on growing for centuries to come. But when I was a growing boy it was just the right kind of a tree for me to chum with. It was not too big to climb, and yet it was big enough to take me on its back and carry me into all the dreamlands of childhood. Among its whispering branches I found lands as wonderful as Jack climbed to on his beanstalk. And it had a stout right arm that was strong enough to hold up a swing on which I swung and dreamed for more hours than the teachers of today would consider right. When it whispered to me I whispered to it, and told it more secrets than I have ever told anyone in the world. It became a part of my life, and no matter how far I wandered in later years my thoughts would always return to the tree in times of sickness and trouble. I always felt that I would be well and happy again if I could only get back to the tree and throw myself at full length on the grass that it shaded and listen to its never-ending gossip with the breezes that are forever visiting it. At last I came back from the outer world and made my home beside the tree. During my absence it had pushed up higher and had spread its branches wider, but it was still the same companionable tree. The grass still made a carpet over its roots, inviting me to sprawl at full length and renew our voiceless communion. While I was away I may have learned some things, but the tree had been in harmony with the universe from the moment it began to emerge from the acorn, and knew all that I so sorely needed to learn.

Although the oak is my particular friend among the trees on the farm, there are others with which I can claim at least an acquaintanceship. There is a maple at the edge of the woodlot that always makes me feel uncomfortable, because I have a feeling that it has a joke on me. It stands on what would be called rising ground—which means an elevation that does not deserve to be called a hill—and while lying on the grass in its shade I can see over several farms to the south and east. It used to be a favourite of my boyhood, and once I composed a poem while lying in its shade. If you bear in mind the fact that I was seventeen years of age at the time, you will understand why the tree has a joke on me. Here is the only stanza I can remember of the little poem I composed to express the “unmannerly sadness” of youth.

At that age I could not have cherished the hope so very long, and the old tree must have chuckled to its last twig at my absurdity. Anyway, I never see the tree without recalling that wretched stanza, and I immediately hurry away to some other part of the woods.

But there is one tree on the place with which I can never establish a feeling of intimacy. It is the one remaining specimen of the original forest—a giant maple over three feet in diameter, whose spreading top rises far above the other trees in the woodlot. Even though it stands beside the public road, it seems to retain some touch of the shyness of the wilderness, and does not invite the fellowship of man. Its first branches are so high in the air that it has never been profaned by the most venturesome climbers, and its great roots start out from the trunk in a way that seems to thrust back all attempts at familiarity. The second-growth maples by which it is surrounded appear to be domesticated by comparison with this wilding, and when they are tapped at sugar-making time they yield sap as lavishly as a dairy cow gives milk. But the giant gives grudgingly as if it resented the wound it had received. Its companionship seems to be with the wildest winds and storms, that alone have the power to rouse its huge branches to motion.

I sometimes wonder that I should be fond of trees, for when I was a boy trees were regarded almost as enemies. The land had to be cleared of them before crops could be sown, and they multiplied the labour of the pioneers. I learned to swing an axe by cutting down saplings, and ran amuck among them just as my elders did among the larger trees. In those far days trees were things to be destroyed, and no one thought of sparing them. But when I came back to the farm and found that the noble forest had dwindled to a small woodlot that had no young trees in it—because the cattle had nibbled down all seedlings for many years—I was seized by a rage for planting. Finding that the Government was willing to supply seedlings to anyone who would plant them out, I immediately began the work of reforestation and planted thousands so that when the present trees mature and are cut out there will be others to take their place. These little trees are now thriving lustily, but they seem to regard me with an air of aloofness, and I feel when among them as if they were looking at me furtively and trying to decide whether I am to be trusted. Perhaps there is still a tradition in the woodlot of the havoc I wrought in my youth with just such tender saplings as these.

Yesterday while I was sitting at some distance from the home oak, admiring the curved spread of its branches, a barefoot boy came out of the house. Without seeing me, he walked straight to the tree and then looked up at its inviting branches. After a while he got a piece of a rail and placed it against the trunk. Then with clutching fingers and spreading toes he worked his way up to the lowest branch. Through the higher branches he clambered as if going up a ladder, and finally when he found one to his liking he bestrode it, with his back to the trunk, and looked away to the south. For a long time, with childish gravity, he gave himself up to the “long, long thoughts” of a boy. At last his eyes began to rove around and presently they rested on me, where I was watching him. He laughed in a shame-faced way as if he had been surprised in doing something that he would have kept secret, but I laughed back joyously and we understood. I am glad that there is another of my name who will love the old oak and the other trees and to whom they will perhaps give their friendship even more fully than they have given it to me.

FIRES AT NIGHT

Last night I enjoyed a sight with which I was once quite familiar—the burning of log heaps and brush piles. It is so long since this part of Canada was cleared, and cleared altogether too thoroughly, that it is a little hard to realize that not so many years ago you could see the glare of great clearing fires every night and be blinded by the smoke of them every day. The farm on which I saw the illumination is one that has been used for pasture and is now being brought under cultivation for the first time. Some years ago all the valuable timber that remained on it was taken off, and now the stumps have decayed to a point that makes it impossible to clear them off the land. In addition, a lot of thorn bushes that had grown on the pasture land, which was cleared fifty years ago, were grubbed out and piled in great heaps. As these must be got out of the way for the wheat, the torch was applied last night, and the country for miles around was illuminated by the glare. As I watched the conflagration I could hardly resist the impulse to go and help keep the piles heaped together, so that they would burn at their best. It was not that I wanted to be helpful or neighbourly, but I wanted to be near the great fires where I could see the shadows dancing back and forth.

A visit a few weeks ago to the farm that is being cleared revived another picture that I have not seen for many years—a picture that carried with it the burden of much labour and loneliness and desolation. After sitting in the house talking we stepped out and I saw the sunset behind the stumps and brush heaps. It was years since I had seen such a sight, and it brought back a flood of old memories. Quite naturally there were whip-poor-wills flying over the new clearing, although we seldom see them here, and it was appropriate that memory should give me back quotations from a Canadian poet to fit the scene. Two of Lampman’s sonnets were recalled at once, and I chose from them these fitting lines:

Every few minutes I could hear the “griding wing,” and presently the other quotation could be applied:

But Lampman was not the only poet recalled by this primitive scene. As I walked home looking at the glow in the west and a little sickle of a new moon, passages from Shelley came crowding to my lips, especially the tremendous lines:

At first I was puzzled that such lines should come back to me at such a time, but presently I remembered that it was on a similar evening long ago, when looking at such a sunset over a field that we were clearing, I had first read Shelley’s “Prologue to Hellas.” The lines had burned themselves into my memory, and with them by association of ideas I remembered the stumpy field, the sunset, the new moon and the whip-poor-wills. Yet I might have recalled the lines from other associations, for now, as never before, “the reluctant present,” is being swayed by the work of the kings and hierarchs of the past.

HOME TALK

Last night a number of things united to induce an unusual mood. I was sitting up alone to keep the fires blazing against the homecoming of youthful holiday-makers who would probably come in chilled from a cutter ride in the worst storm of the winter. Just as the “very witching hour of night”—doubly witching, because the thermometer was slipping down across zero as the clock was reaching midnight—I saw that my supply of wood was running low, and put on coat, cap and mitts to bring in a couple of armfuls. Now it happened that I had just read a reference to Drake’s drum and how that fierce hero would come back to the aid of England when his drum was sounded in Devon. I mused on what it might be that would call back to us in our need the souls of the pioneers that were also akin to “The Soul of a North Sea Storm.” As I stepped out the stars were twinkling frostily and the wind was roaring through the elms. Instead of being oppressed by the storm, I was elated by it. A wave of exultation swept over me. Then memory gave back a tag from an old recitation:

Surely if the spirit of the pioneers were to come back it would be on such a night as this. Their greatest battle was with the Canadian winter, with the legions of the cold. They waged an age-long warfare and were victorious. Where there had been a wilderness they made a land of homes.

In the room where I was sitting there had once been a huge fireplace that roared on such nights as this with blazing back logs and sticks of cordwood. Years ago it had been taken out and replaced by a stove whose appetite for fuel was more in accord with the available supply. But I had heard pioneer stories told around that old fireplace by veritable pioneers, and last night the old scenes came back to me. I remembered the tenor of those stories. They dealt with home-building and the struggles through which men and women passed in getting a foothold in the new land. Those who talked were shepherds, sailors, weavers, fishermen, carpenters and workers, who knew nothing of clearing land and farming. They had entered the wilderness without training, without preparation and without means. It is true that they suffered much, but they had the indomitable spirit that prevails over all difficulties. They prevailed because of the hope that sustained them—the hope of establishing homes for themselves and their families. The homes that they established were practically self-sustaining. Almost everything they needed in the way of food, shelter and clothing they produced themselves or secured by barter with their neighbours or with artisans in the villages that sprang up to serve the needs of the new country. It is doubtful if Canada will ever again see so self-reliant and independent a race of men and women. It is true that all who came did not succeed, but enough of them succeeded to establish a land great enough to make its prowess known to the world. And in spite of all that has been accomplished—whether for good or evil—by statesmen, financiers and industrial leaders the true spirit of Canada is the spirit of the pioneers. But how shall we evoke that spirit in an hour of need?

AN OLD-FASHIONED SPRING

The impression I have gathered from the stories I have been reading is that a late spring in the old days was a real hardship. It meant more than a delay in getting in crops and spoiling the chances for a money-making harvest. The great question with the settlers during the first few years was not money, but food. A late spring meant, time and again, that they were forced to eat their seed grain and seed potatoes in order to preserve life. I have just read about one pioneer, and not one of the unthrifty kind either, who was forced to dig up the potatoes after they were planted in order to feed his family. In spite of all this, one of his sons is now an eminent doctor and another a banker. When spring came to the woods there might be a few people who were glad to see the flowers, but there were more whose first search was for leeks, cow-cabbage, nettles, and other pot-herbs. Many had to live for months during the winter on potatoes. Those who could afford pork and oatmeal were already on the high-road to prosperity, and to many wheat bread was a luxury. The more I read and learn about pioneer life the more I am forced to the conclusion that much of the courage shown was the courage of despair. Having moved into the wilderness and built their log huts, there was absolutely nothing for them to do but to maintain life by every possible means. Many of the settlers were scores of miles from any place that could make a pretence to civilization. Even if they struggled out, what could they hope for without money? The hospitality of civilization soon wears thin to the penniless, and, even if they were too proud to confess failure, they would soon find that it was better to depend on the sometimes niggardly bounty of nature than on the bounty of fellow-men whose condition was but little better than their own. When men and women had to depend on the spring for food, as well as for warmth and opportunity, they had some reason to be despondent if she lingered a little longer than usual in the lap of winter.

When the spring finally came the settler was in many cases a prisoner on the patch of high ground which he had started to clear. It was not until government drains had been put through that there was much thought of clearing the low ground. If any of this low ground was cleared it was left under grass, the native redtop. For at least a month every spring it would be flooded most of the time, but I have been told that this flooding fertilized the ground, and that the hay crops were more wonderful than anything we see today. Even though the snow might melt during winter thaws, the water remained in the swamps, and when the spring breaking-up really began the country became a series of islands. I know of one place not a mile from here where there is now a good gravel road that is passable at any time of the year. Fifty years ago people who had to pass that way were forced to use a raft for about three-quarters of a mile during the spring floods. That was on a public road, of course, and was a great improvement on the blazed trails through the woods which most people had to use. A pretty custom of those days was to have a pole wherever the trail crossed a creek or water-hole. The foot passenger was supposed to take this and vault over the water. No wonder vaulting with a pole used to be one of the popular sports on the Queen’s Birthday and at the fall fair. Though the girls did not take part in the public exhibitions, I am assured that in the depths of the forest they often showed themselves just as expert as their brothers. Careful people when going on a journey of any length through the woods in the spring-time took with them a strong, slender pole that they could use for balancing themselves when making their way through the swamps on fallen logs or to vault with when necessary. Another favourite way of crossing the old creeks was on logs, and as it was seldom that anyone took the trouble to flatten them, considerable skill was needed by those who attempted a passage. And that reminds me of a story. One spring many years ago two young men were paying court to the same girl. Both had to cross the creek that wound before her home, and one of them had a bright idea. As soon as it was dark he hurried to the creek, carrying a pail of soft soap. Straddling the log, he worked his way backwards across and spread the slippery soap lavishly on the little bridge over which his rival was to follow. He then washed his hands and went to the house to press his suit. About an hour later he was quietly gratified to hear a loud splash in the swollen stream. This put so much courage in him that he pleaded his cause with complete success. Some time about midnight he tore himself away from his future bride and was so exultingly happy that he forgot all about the soaped log. There is no need telling you what happened.

Another thing that made the old-time late spring a disaster was the need of clearing the land. It was during the winter that most of the chopping was done, and in the spring the brush and log heaps had to be burned off before any crop could be put in among the stumps. If the spring was late it was often hard to get the seed in the ground early enough.

About the only relaxation of those spring days when settlers were imprisoned on their islands was that of yelling. The young fellows, when they started out to “browse” their cattle in the morning would let out a lusty whoop just to tell their neighbours that they were alive. Others would answer them and the “Good-morning” yell would pass through a settlement in much the same way that cock crowing does now. You know how that goes if you ever happen to be awake early enough. First you hear a faint crowing away to the east. A few seconds later you hear it a little nearer, and almost before you realize what is going on your own pet Leghorns are hard at it. Then the crowing comes from the nearest barnyard to the west, and presently the noise dies away faintly in that direction. Possibly the cocks are telling one another that all is well, just as the settlers did.

PROMISE OF SPRING

Last Friday afternoon we had a couple of hours of sunshine and warm air that made us forget the winter and its storms. It seemed as if spring had taken a little excursion across the snow fields to see how we are wintering and to assure us that she is not so very far away. The little breeze that came from the south purred with happiness and the sunshine spread a glorious smile over the frozen fields. A group of crows in the woodlot were so noisy that one would be excused for thinking that they were trying to furnish a substitute for the bird song that should accompany perfect days in the country. Their cawing fitted the occasion so admirably that it almost seemed musical. Although the fields and forests were still frozen, they seemed to be flooded with the almost palpable life that always comes with the first days of spring. To feel the warm sunshine and to breathe the pure air was exhilarating and filled us with courage to endure what may yet come of winter. The spring has not forgotten us and before many weeks have passed she will come back, with all the hosts of life, to overwhelm us with beauty. But it was only a little visit and today we are having sleet and east winds. But the memory of spring is with us and we pile wood on the fire and let the tempest rave. There are still apples to eat and nuts to crack, so who cares for surly winter.

THE THAW

Perhaps it was a long slow thaw—a thaw of wind and rain and slush that Shakespeare had in mind when he described someone or something as being as “tedious as a great thaw.” He surely couldn’t have been thinking of a brisk, balmy, sunshiny thaw such as we had last Tuesday. That thaw was something to write sonnets or soliloquies about. It came as a sort of meteorological depth bomb dropped into the middle of winter. It blew up the wintry pirates and gave us a perfect day after two months of steady frost. And wasn’t it just a perfect day? It was a day to make a man come out of his wintry shell and crawl out on the roof of the world to bask in the everlasting sunshine. Perhaps Einstein’s theory doesn’t recognize the fact that there is a roof on the world, any more than the shattered Newtonian theory did. Never you mind. There is a roof—a roof that is crossed by the pathway of the gods, and such a day as we had could make a man’s soul expand until he could loll around on it and soak in sunshine and not care a whoop. While our thaw was not the beginning of spring it indicated spring, and one couldn’t help spouting Carman’s immortal “Spring Song”:

Alas, and alas! we have devoted most of our energies during the past few years to stuffing that “rag-bag of the world.” Let us hope that something can be made over from it, and that before long.

A SPRING RESOLUTION

I simply will not write spring poetry! Nature may tempt me as much as she likes, but I will not yield! Never before did I have so much trouble keeping from this world-worn form of folly. It is simply hissing at the safety valve, but I am keeping a firm grip on myself. The flicker of the sunshine on the roofs and fences, the far blue of the sky, the twittering of the birds, the cackling of the hens, the bawling of the cattle, the barking of the dogs, and the echoes that make the woods alive, all conspire to start my thoughts jigging and my words tinkling in rhyme. But I will not give in! I know, I feel that the world is flooded with the life impulse, with the “elan vital” of Bergson, but I have set my teeth and refuse to give in. The big, wise, absurd world laughs at spring poets and what I am enjoying these days is too good to be laughed at. I know that the life stirring in the innumerable roots of the grass and the myriad seeds and the swelling buds is the same life that is flushing me with joy, but I shall be silent at any cost. These favourites of nature will expand in beauty and be living poems and no one will laugh at them. As I reach out and touch them with my finger tips I seem to feel the fire of life in them and my pulses beat to a new rhyme. And oh, it would be so easy to relieve my soul with a little lyric. A catchy refrain begins to beat in my head:

No, I will not crow either! The world is full of people who are enjoying this spring glamour as much as I am and they are keeping quiet about it. I wonder if poetry should be written at all. Perhaps it should be lived and enjoyed. Who knows but the poet is simply a leaky vessel spilling out in words the lyrical fire that was meant to warm his heart and keep his pulses attune for the struggle of life. I seem to remember that Walt Whitman asserted somewhere that he had in himself all poems and all books. Who knows but that is true of all of us? And the wise people keep the poetry of life for their own use, knowing that all men have the same poetry in their souls if they will only relax themselves enough to enjoy it. In these beautiful spring days I feel sure that all my fellows of the world are moved with the same poetic urge that is thrilling me with its beauty. Why should I bother them with attempts to put in words what they already have in their hearts?

BOILING-IN

Boiling-in has its old-time charm. Although that neat little arch that I have made up my mind to build every spring for many years, and which I have neglected to attend to every summer, is still a thing of dreams, I cannot keep away from the sugar-bush “when the sap begins to stir.” As we have tapped only thirty trees I am in no danger of being rushed, and the job takes on something of the aspect of a tonic holiday in the woods. By using a minimum of energy I can keep ahead of the sap, gather wood for the fire and see to it that the sap in the pan is boiling merrily. A discarded bucket, turned upside down, serves as a seat where one may enjoy a meditative pipe. A high-holer spent most of yesterday afternoon pounding out his love call on a hollow limb near by, and the crows cawed in the restrained manner they have before a rain. There was just enough wind stirring to make a draft under the pan, and it was blowing from the right direction. During the afternoon a couple of visitors came in from the road, and the time seemed right for talking over the affairs of the world in general. The air was warm enough to make an overcoat unnecessary. On the whole, conditions were ideal, and I kept right on boiling-in until the sun went down and the moonlight filtered down through the clouds. As twilight began I heard the owls hooting in all directions, and a spirit of loneliness brooded over the woods and fields. By previous arrangement a helper presently came out to the woods, and we gave the syrup in the pan an extra boil before taking it off. Then we tramped across the pasture, carrying our half pail of thick syrup. It was all very primitive and elemental and refreshing.

SUGAR-MAKING

When a barrelful of sap had been gathered I took the new boiling pan to the woods and prepared to enjoy myself. Now, don’t interrupt to tell me that I should have an up-to-date evaporator and all that sort of thing. I know it would make the work easier and more scientific, but the initial cost would be too great. A sheet-iron pan made by the tinsmith is more within my range, and if it leaks at every rivet hole to begin with, that is my affair. I can cure that by using furnace cement and by boiling some oatmeal in the pan before beginning with the sap. I also know that I should have an arch instead of a trench cut through a cradle knoll for the fire, for I have read all the advertisements of the best appliances for making maple sugar, but a man must cut his coat according to his cloth, and even if my temper had “Fourteen rattles and a button on it” before I got that sieve of a pan working right I am not going to tell about it. No one heard the remarks I made except the birds and I shall take a chance on a bird of the air reporting the matter.

When I finally got the pan caulked and the sap boiling briskly the world began to look brighter. Practically all the birds had come back over night. Killdeers and meadowlarks were calling, song sparrows and horned larks were singing, bluebirds were flashing past and shedding music, and the crows, blackbirds, jays, and robins were gossiping everywhere. A south wind was blowing just enough to make a good draught under the pan and the sun was looking down on everything “fur’s I cud look or listen” and finding it good. Now, most people, when their work is going right and they are feeling happy, begin to whistle. I do not. Trained musicians have told me in confidence that my whistling sounds “like a hog in a high wind” and I have long since given up the practice—by request. My favourite relaxation is to let a few lines of poetry begin drumming in my head. I let that inward voice which puts all our thoughts in shape for us sing or chant the poetry for me over and over until I have tasted all its sweetness. On the particular day I have in mind the poem that thrust itself on me was one of Poe’s:

But try as I would I could not recall the next two lines of the stanza. After repeating these two lines indefinitely, while my eyes and ears were taking in all that was going on about me in nature, I skipped to the next stanza which I could remember:

But Poe is not the poet for the open air and the woods. His gloomy imaginings began to overshadow the day:

As quickly as possible I shook off the spell of his haunting word magic. There have been times when I have given myself up to his morbid brooding, for like Vance Thompson I have

But he did not belong in the open sunshine. I had to seek another companion.

In the intervals of gathering brush for the fire and pouring sap into the steaming pan—which still leaked here and there, drat it!—I began to hunt for a poet companion to help me pass the time—not to improve the time, mark you, but to make it pass pleasantly. Naturally I thought of Shakespeare for he is supposed to fit everywhere, but I guess the wrong quotations came to me. Every quotation had a moral tagged to it—sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, etc. Under a roof Shakespeare can be uproariously humorous, wise, witty, sublime, but in the open air he seems to moralize everything “into a thousand similes,” to be constantly gathering “honey from the weed” and making “a moral of the devil himself.” I would have none of him. Whitman proved equally difficult. I could not attend to my work and at the same time “loaf and invite my soul.” Neither could I chum with him in his more cosmical moods. To do that I would have to spurn the earth away with my toe and look at things from “the outer dark.”

But what would happen to the boiling syrup while I was taking such flights? It would be scorched and burned beyond a doubt. Moreover, I like to keep my feet on the earth—in good Canadian mud—even when indulging the wildest flights of imagination. I would have none of Whitman, even if he is the poet of outdoors. So one by one I tested many poets and rejected them all. They demanded too much.

After all, do the poets amount to so very much? Out in the woods I do not feel that they do. At their best they merely give us a point of view and a mood so that we can see and feel things as they did. But we all have moods and points of view of our own. Why shouldn’t we use our own? You will soon find that every point of view overlooks as wonderful a world as any other. And you will find that your own moods attract the thoughts that belong to them as a magnet attracts steel filings. What if they are not the thoughts that you have seen in books? They are better, for they are your own. And that reminds me that we are inclined to make too much of books and even of thoughts. Books are all right to hold facts until we need them, just as a tool chest holds tools. And thoughts are dangerous, whether they be our own or the thoughts of others, unless we keep them under control. Do you not remember Shelley’s picture of one who

On this perfect afternoon I did not want to be harried by thoughts, by my own or those of other men. I wanted to let the great sunshine and the earth smells, the sounds of wind and wing, and the homely farm and woodland sights—spreading about me as far as the horizon—seep into my soul through my senses, so that on some future day of storms and sorrow I could recall it entire and regain something of its peace. Is it not wonderful how in this way the things of the material world are constantly entering our minds through our senses, while the things of the inner and immaterial world are constantly passing out into the material world through our words and actions? Our observations and our thoughts are forever being woven into a wonderful tapestry of life and we are a part of the pattern. As I realize that I seem to see the spirit that answered:

And so the afternoon passed, with the poets and without them, with thoughts and without them, until the sun went down in gold and amber and my work was done. With the urge of spring in my heart and a strange music in my brain I bore home my spoils, feeling that the day had not been wasted.

A LARGE DAY

It is a great day, an expansive day, a large day. The first thing that impressed me about it was its size. I know it is not customary to describe a day in terms of space, but there seems to be no way out of it. This is not a day of the kind that can be enjoyed in a house, or a field, or even within the rim of the horizon. It reaches up to the great neighbourly sun, and spreads as wide as the imagination. It is a day that overwhelms me, but, on thinking it over, I have found the key to its mystery. When I got up this morning it was the sun that first fixed my attention. It came bustling over the horizon with the air of one about to start spring house-cleaning. It awakened the south wind, plucked the myriad icy fingers from the little rivulets and flooded the world with light and warmth. But it is hardly exact to speak of the sun as house-cleaning. It is really building a new home and using only the foundations and framework of the old. It is upholstering the hills, decorating the woods, and refurnishing the fields. In a few days it will recarpet the earth and tack down the green breadths with brass-headed dandelions. When that work is done we can get down to a consideration of the buds and flowers and birds and the exquisite little things of spring. Today the invitation is to have an outing with the universe. Only the sun and his work are worth considering.

On a day like this it is hard to believe that the sun is ninety million miles away. Why, it is just up there in the sky, and is busy at our feet and all around us. I do not thank the astronomers for teaching me that it is so distant. I would much rather have the point of view of the Prince of Morocco, who protested:

All through the winter the sun may have been as far away as learned men say, but today it is visiting with us. It is at work in the back yard and in the front yard and in the fields and woods. It is making the warm wind blow and the sweet sap flow, and making us all so happy that we drop into rhyme without noticing. But one cannot do justice to such a day as this even while sitting on a log in the sugar-bush and writing in the intervals of firing-up under the pan. To enjoy and describe it aright he should be able, in imagination, to sit on a mountain with his feet in a pleasant valley and his head aureoled with smoky haze. He should be conscious only of the kindly sun and of its footstool, the earth. His singing robes should be woven of golden sunshine, and—and—I guess I had better leave that sort of thing to the poets and put a few more sticks under the pan.

THE GREAT EXPERIMENT

“Now what on earth kind of mess are you making?”

Wasn’t that a cheering remark to fling at a man who was having his crowded hour! When it startled and irritated me, I was busy being a pioneer of science, a prose poet, and the patient head of a family, all at the same time. Some people have their crowded hour of glorious life. That is the kind that poets sing about. Mine, as you will notice, was a crowded hour of simple life, and what it was worth will be set down hereinafter with humble truthfulness.

“Do you think that other people have nothing to do but wash saucepans for you to muss up? What do you think you are doing, anyway?”

The phrases of prose-poetry evaporated. The importance of the scientific discovery dwindled, and the dignified attitude necessary to the head of a family was seriously threatened.

“I’m just trying an experiment,” I replied in guarded tones that covered a volcano of peevishness. My crowded hour had come during the sugar weather. There had been a cold snap that froze the sap in the buckets and hung icicles from the spiles. I had wandered disconsolately through the bush to investigate the frosty situation, when suddenly I remembered a treat that had been the delight of my youth. Unhooking a bucket, I tilted it over, until the ice-cake loosened, and then a spoonful of clear, thick syrup slipped over the rim into my waiting lips. Mm-mm-mm, but it did taste good, and right there the idea occurred to me that caused all the trouble.

It was evident that the real sweetness of maple sap did not freeze at the same temperature as water. Now, the whole process of sugar-making consists of removing the water from the sap. This is done by ordinary, prosaic people by boiling it down until all the water has evaporated. Not good enough for me. I would do something unique, characteristic of the north, Canadian, wonderful! (You will notice that the prose-poetry began with the inception of the idea.) If the first freezing removed so much of the water, why couldn’t it all be removed by successive freezings—purified in the alembics of frost—perfected in nature’s windswept laboratory. Sounds good to me. Here goes.

With me, like Richard, to think is to act. Taking a pail, I went from tree to tree, unhooked bucket after bucket, and secured a grudging spoonful from each. The temperature was ten degrees below freezing, a north wind was blowing as if it had a search warrant, snow was drifting, and long before I had visited all of the hundred trees we had tapped, my fingers were numb. But what of that? Would it not be something to make the Canadian climate perfect the most delicious of all Canadian products? Not even the realms of poetry could furnish anything to equal it. Keats’ “Syrops tinct with cinnamon” would be insipid by comparison, and Shakespeare’s “Poppies and mandragora, and all the drowsy syrops of the world” but a high-sounding phrase. Cheered by such thoughts as these I kept on, in the words of Katherine Hale:

—and also with chattering teeth. An hour of frost-bitten industry yielded about a quart of crude syrup, and without waiting to remove my ear muffs, I raided the kitchen for saucepans. I was simply bubbling over with quotations of poetry, scientific enthusiasm, and phrases in the process of coining. And it was while in this tumultuous mood I was interrupted with the question recorded above. Was ever a man so interrupted?

“What kind of an experiment are you trying?” persisted the unsympathetic inquisitor.

“I am going to make maple syrup by a new process. I shall refine it by cold, instead of heat.”

“What good will that do?”

“What good, woman? What good did it do Peary to go to the North Pole? I’ll bet Mrs. Galvani stood around and asked just such fool questions when Galvani was making frogs’ legs twitch with electricity. What good did that do? huh? It opened the way for all the modern developments of electricity. If it hadn’t been for Galvani making frogs’ legs twitch, we wouldn’t have any hydro-electric power scheme and you wouldn’t be able to gossip with your neighbours over the telephone. Just you wait till I have pipe lines carrying the sap from every sugar-bush to the Arctic regions, and am refining maple syrup for the whole world by the zero process. You won’t ask me then, ‘What’s the use?’ No, indeed! You will just stand round wearing diamonds and remarking that you don’t see anything very wonderful about it all. Anyone might have thought of it. It only happened that I thought of it first.”

It will be a draught “for Juno when she banquets.” It will be a liqueur to be quaffed at the close of the feast from long-stemmed glasses of Venetian artistry. In each there shall be a flake of gold leaf, beaten from the precious ores of Yukon or Larder Lake. This shall make it give its colour aright, and those who quaff——

“Well, of all the fool notions——” commented another observer.

It was thus, no doubt, that the people of Syracuse joshed Archimedes when he was fussing with the first lever, and making fool remarks about how he could move the world. Yet see what the lever has done for humanity. One after another the grown-ups about the place investigated what was going on, sniffed superior and went in to warm themselves by the kitchen fire.

Surely this would be the opportunity of a lifetime. A description of frost-refined syrup could be made as eloquent as Ingersoll on whiskey, or Voorhees on the dog. Br-r-r—but it’s cold! As the ice formed in the saucepans the thickening syrup was drained off with tender care, but not until the children came from school did I receive any sympathy. As they had no preconceived notions, it seemed quite logical and wonderful to them that syrup should be refined in this way. They forgot their cold fingers and toes in the kindling of their imaginations.

“We’ll get a refrigerator to make our syrup with, won’t we, father? That’ll be better than an evaporator, won’t it?”

“Certainly.”

When in need of sympathy, go to the young! They are the only ones whose eyes can see the promised land. Moses was right in his dealings with the Israelites. He led them around through the wilderness until the older generation had died off. The older generation has been made up of doubters and knockers since the beginning of time. They all come from Missouri.

By this time it was so cold that the muse went on strike. For the last time the syrup was drained off from the ice, and with the children at my heels, I went into the house to enjoy my triumph. This was a time when those who sat in the seats of the scornful were right. My frost-refined syrup was a sickishly sweet, colourless fluid of no distinction. In all probability it was not true maple syrup at all, but what the scientists call maple honey, a substance derived from maple sap, and which will not crystallize. Still, the “crowded hour” was not in vain. It enabled me to learn at first hand just what the pioneers of progress must have suffered when perfecting their inventions. It was a mere detail that my invention was no good.

FISHING

What would spring be to a small boy without fishing? At the present writing fishing is at high tide, though we are still living on the same old fare. Although fish lines and hooks have been bought, fishing poles trimmed to shape with the butcher knife and loads of bait dug, I have yet to see an actual fish. I cannot deny that years ago I used to get plump chub in the government drain, and one year some carp weighing five pounds and over came up with the spring flood, but it is long since I have seen anything bigger than a minnow. Still, the littlest boys know that there were fish in the drain once, so why not now? There is a spot about half a mile away where willows were allowed to grow on the bank and the spring floods scooped out holes in which driftwood accumulated. In these mysterious depths fish are supposed to hide, and a baited hook will be stripped of its bait in a few minutes. There is no lack of nibbles that appear to give the old-time thrill, but it is no use explaining that minnows less than two inches long, that are too small to be hooked, are the fish most active in this kind of work. I know that they are just as likely to catch a finnan haddie or dried codfish or canned salmon as a fish of any size, but I wouldn’t dampen their ardour for anything. As a matter of fact, I am inclined to approve of their enthusiasm, for I find that the chores go through with a rush since the fishing began. All I need to do is to let them wring a reluctant promise from me that if they hurry through the chores they can go fishing. After offering enough opposition to make the favour seem great I give a grudging consent and the chores go through with a rush. And at bedtime a couple of wet and muddy boys come home, very tired and very hungry. Though they bring no fish they have had such monstrous bites that they are sure there are big fish there, only they are too cute to swallow the baited hooks. Some day they are going to catch a whale, and then they will show me. What would youth be without its faith in the possibilities of fishing and such things?

Right here an interruption has occurred. I might have known when I was writing that first paragraph in such a superior way that something would happen, but the truth must be told even though wisdom be confounded. A few minutes ago a boy bulged through the kitchen door waving a string of fish and registering triumph. He found the right fishing hole at last and caught eight, and one big one—Oh, a beauty—got away. I hadn’t a word to say. I examined them and was forced to admit that he had eight as fine chub as I had ever seen taken in this district. The longest measured seven and a half inches and the shortest six inches. Fishing is now on a firm basis and the food outlook has greatly improved. There is a fish banquet being arranged, and the titled cat was so excited at the prospect of getting eight heads to chew at that he had to be put out. But though my predictions have all gone wrong and the faith of the boys has been justified, I am not without compensations. The chores will now be done with more steam than ever and the fishing season may last all summer. If they can only catch a few now and then to keep up their interest, they will not need to be driven to any kind of work. The promise of permission to go fishing as soon as a job is done will be enough to get them to do their best. I hate driving them and it will be a real pleasure to have their minds so set on fishing that they will do their work eagerly so as to win their freedom. I hope the fish supply lasts right through the corn-hoeing season. By the way, I am not sure but it would be a good plan to have the drain stocked with fish so that there would be a sure supply every spring. I must think about it.

CHURNING

There’s no use talking about it, the churning should always be done on Saturday when the children are at home from school. I have always thought so, and now I am sure of it. This forenoon I had to churn, and it came near being my afternoon job as well. When I was away from home the churn thermometer was mysteriously broken, and it is hard to get a new one. The thermometer we use to keep tabs on the weather has a plush back, so I couldn’t dip it into the cream. The result was that the churning had to be done “by guess and by gosh,” and the performance was not a success. There was no way of finding out the temperature of the cream. As the day was chilly I thought it must be too cool, so, after making the barrel churn spin and splash for a while, I began adding hot water. Still it wouldn’t break. It wouldn’t even bend. Finally someone came along, squinted into the churn, and told me that I had the cream so warm that the butterfat was too oily to gather. For the next half hour I cautiously splashed cold water into it and kept the churn spinning. But if a churn was ever bewitched that one was. It must have been overlooked by Puck, who has been known to

But, having started, I was bound to finish the job, and kept right on treading power under the churn. I started at ten o’clock and was still going strong at noon. Then an experienced butter-maker came along—one whose experience dated back to the time before people got so scientific as to use thermometers. I was offered the cold comfort that in the dark past churns sometimes went wrong, and that after churning for three days the people had to give up in despair. Quite evidently my churn had gone wrong. Like jelly that wouldn’t jell, or politics that wouldn’t poll, my batch of butter wouldn’t butt. At last I sent over and borrowed a thermometer from a neighbour, and found that I had been working with a cream somewhere about 40°. After it was coaxed up a trifle above 60° I went at it again, but by this time it was sulking, and it took another half hour to make the butter come. When it finally did come it had a pale, overworked look, and appeared to be ready for the rest cure. However, I got the butter by my persistence, and that was some satisfaction. But two rules were born of the struggle, that will be enforced as inflexibly as the laws of the Medes and the Persians. No more churnings will be undertaken without a thermometer handy to test the temperature, and the churning will be done on Saturday—unless the children happen to be home on some other day of the week. I have had enough.

A SONG OF ASPARAGUS

Sing we now the asparagus! Let others laud the daffodil and hyacinth, the brisk hepatica and the rathe spring beauty. They do well enough for inconsequent poets, but are not satisfying to the man who relishes his victuals. The fat turion of the esculent asparagus pushing from the rich soil is to me a fairer sight. What it lacks in beauty it makes up in vitamins, and when you get it fresh from the earth it hath elusive savours unknown to the epicure of canned comestibles. What do they know of asparagus who only canned asparagus know? And they are little better who get it from the market where it has been drying in the sun while awaiting customers. Half an hour from the garden to the table is the right rule—and a lavish supply of new grass butter to drip from it like molten gold. Gathering the asparagus is now what gathering mushrooms will be later. Every morning the little patch—why didn’t I make it bigger when I was at it?—shows from four to five dozen thick sprouts that are edible from end to end. One cannot restrain the impulse to go to see the display in the morning, though we restrain our raptures until our appetites are sharp set for dinner. “The asparagus is on,” is a dinner call of power. There is no waiting after that delectable announcement is made. I know I shouldn’t be making people envious in this way—but think of those fat vitamins and the ravishing flavours. Mm-mm-mm!

SPRING RELISH

A horseradish that was growing where no horseradish should be, attracted my attention to itself by putting forth the first tender green in the garden. When I saw it I felt the immediate need of vitamins, fat solubles and all the up-to-date food necessities. I am not sure that horseradish comes among the recommended vegetables, but that can be explained by the fact that scientists are mostly city people, while the horseradish is robustiously countrified. Its vitamins have pep in them, and they are on tip-toe all the time. Anyway, I felt the need of horseradish in my diet, and dug up the root at once. It was a fresh plant, with many long tender roots about the thickness of a man’s finger. Gathering these roots, I scraped and washed them carefully, and then put them through the meat chopper. This grated them sufficiently, and when treated with sugar, salt, and vinegar the horseradish furnished a dish that a king might turn up his nose at—for it is very pungent—but that any man should relish. When mixed with mashed potatoes, horseradish gives a dish with a tang. It is good with meats, and may be used to make a spicy sandwich. It is our first taste of natural fresh food this season, and suggests the succulent feasts ahead when pot-herbs may be gathered and brought to the table. There is something in getting one’s food direct from nature in this way that begets a thankful spirit.

Shakespeare failed with his rhyme in that couplet, but he had the right idea.

STORMS AT SUNRISE

Yesterday and today we had thunderstorms at sunrise. When the first one roused us we deserted the tent and scurried to the house. But this morning the thunder began to rumble in the distance about four o’clock, and when I got up to see if a storm was really coming I noticed that the children were sound asleep. So I decided that we would be brave and stay in our tent. Closing the flaps, I went back to bed and awaited developments. Presently there was a sharp flash of lightning and a smashing peal of thunder. A tousled head popped up from a bed, took a look to see that I was still in the tent, and then disappeared under the bedclothes. A moment later another head went through the same performance, and we settled down to enjoy the storm, each in his own way. There were a few gusts of high wind that broke down an old apple tree a few rods away, and made me feel uncomfortable about the prospects for the tent, but it was properly staked and it stood the test. Then the rain came—and came and came. The tent filled with a fine mist, but it was not until the storm was about over that water began to drip. It was the heaviest rain of the season, and the tent turned it wonderfully. By the time it was past it was time to be stirring for breakfast, and as we talked it over we decided that sleeping in a tent during a thunderstorm is a great adventure. When the lightning flashed the whole tent seemed to be bathed in flame. The light, that for some reason showed a pinkish tinge, seemed to come from every direction. In a way it seemed more disquieting than when observed in the open or in a house. Of course, these observations are all my own. All that the people under the clothes were able to observe was that going through a storm in a tent is a somewhat suffocating experience. But after the storm we are having a glorious day. The world has been wind-lashed and rain-soaked and thunder-shaken. And after the riot of the elements

IN THE WOODS

After wandering around for a while in the woods on Sunday afternoon, I came to a little glade that was beautifully carpeted with luxuriant grass. It was both shaded from the sun and sheltered from the wind. It was an ideal spot to sit down and rest and listen to the birds. There was a cradle knoll that offered an excellent seat—and I sat down. A pileated woodpecker began calling in the west corner. I wanted to see him, but felt too restful to get up and hunt for him. The wind purred drowsily in the tops of the tall maples. Occasionally a mourning dove sent forth its plaintive note, and a little song sparrow sang his song over and over again with happy persistence. A couple of butterflies danced about over my little glade, and I felt too lazy to turn my head to follow their flight. There was no doubt about it, I was beginning to feel sleepy. I knew I shouldn’t lie down on the ground, especially after the heavy rains we had been having. But the grass looked so soft and inviting, and just then I noticed a little ridge of sod that seemed meant for a pillow. I would try it for a few minutes anyway. The air was warm, even if the ground might be cool. It was very comfy and I was feeling so very drowsy. A big buzzing fly found me and investigated my ear until I put my hat over my face. The wind purred in the trees and the little song sparrow sang joyously. Through the corner of one eye I could see “that inverted bowl men call the sky,” with an occasional cloud drifting across. The last thing I remember was thinking that I was not so very sleepy after all, and that I had better get up before I caught cold. The next thing I remember was waking with a sudden start and realizing that I had been asleep. When I sat up I realized from the length of the shadows that I had been asleep for quite a while. Then the flyer went by on the railroad, and I knew that I had been asleep for a couple of hours. I felt both refreshed and hungry, and started for home at once. I found that supper was over and they were beginning to wonder what had happened to me.

JUNE COLOURS

At the present time there is a wonderful transformation in progress. The whole colour scheme of nature is changing with subtle variations. In the first flush of spring everything was green, though every plant, bush and tree had a distinctive shade of its own. But now the green wheat is heading out, and the wheat fields are showing the first tinge of what will be harvest gold. The clover fields are turning red as the blossoms open, and in the alfalfa fields there is a tinge of blue. The brown earth of the cornfields is now tufted with green hills that will presently hide the soil with wide leaves that will shimmer in the wind and sunlight. Even the green pasture fields are showing warmer tints over the grass. The grasses are heading out, and showing colours that are often missed by the casual observer. In the flower garden every day brings some new bloom. As the tulips faded the irises came in all their splendour, and now the irises are giving place to Oriental poppies. Yesterday I passed the poppies and wondered when the buds would burst. This morning there was a blossom showing two handbreadths of flaming scarlet. Some time in the night it had opened its wide and gorgeous petals. Today it gives a touch of colour that overwhelms all other blossoms. Even the roses are dim beside it.

COUNTRY LIVING

All ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, or pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope, who believe that the deficiencies of today will be made up by the morrow, and that age will fulfil the promises of youth, attend to the history of a wayfarer dwelling in the country. There’s Johnson for you, somewhat scratched. But what would you? You can’t expect a man to remember to a syllable the reverberating “history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia,” but as this letter is addressed to exactly the same class of dreamers as was that ponderous, pot-boiling classic there is a colourable excuse for borrowing its resounding invocation. To be more explicit, it is addressed to all ye who dream of holidays in the country, or pursue with eagerness the hope of a rustic home; who believe that you still have it in you to be successful farmers, or that you will spend your age amid the scenes of your youth. For your benefit and inspiration an attempt will be made to describe life in the country as it is today.

Today the country is at its most wonderful. Nature has “all her bravery on.” Every field is full of promise. Wherever the eye turns there is life and beauty. The thick woods are rich with flower-haunted shades that invite to picnics; the clover fields are steaming with perfume and thronged with murmuring bees; the birds are clamorous with their young, and the bland, rain-washed air has a tang of real ozone, not of “that blending of the odours of tarred rope and decaying fish that passes from ozone at seaside resorts.” Above all is the blue sky, unfathomably deep and flecked with wind-shepherded clouds that keep the shadows hurrying on their uncharted quest. The leaves are all whispering; flies are droning fitfully, and everything invites to indolence and the unthinking peace that refreshes and revives. It is true that those who work are busy in the fields cultivating the corn or hoeing, and finding the occasional glimpses of the sun uncomfortably hot. But their pride is to “scorn delights and live laborious days,” and this year the prospects are that they shall have their reward. The prospects for all kinds of crops are of the best, and the growing weather is simply perfect.

At this point there was an interruption in the form of an order to go out into the garden and pick a salad. Breaking off crisp lettuce leaves, pulling young onions—Yes! ONIONS! That’s what I said—and rooting out radishes can hardly be classed as work, but the chore involved stooping over in the hot sun for a few minutes, and the discovery was made that a cool breeze cannot be half appreciated unless one’s brow is at least reddened with the sweat of honest toil. Besides, a salad always tastes better if one has helped in its preparation.

The visit to the garden revealed prospects of much good eating. The early peas are already heavily podded and in a week or so will be ready to garnish broilers or lamb chops. There is also an excellent promise of butter beans and new potatoes, and the melon and cucumber vines are spreading bravely. The cabbage, cauliflower, and tomato plants are thrifty, and on the whole the time seems opportune for putting to the test the teachings of G. Bernard Shaw. But although he affects to be one of those who elect to

he produces an amount of satire that provokes a suspicion that a vegetarian diet is productive of bile. Perhaps it will be as well to exercise moderation in the consumption of vegetables. Besides, those broilers are getting plumper and looking more tempting every day, and the best doctors approve of a mixed diet.

After dinner the clouds began to hang lower and almost without warning it began to rain. It was a real growing shower, the rain seeming to ooze out of the warm air and fall without storming. It began from a wispy cloud that did not seem of much importance, gathered rapidly, and poured steadily for half an hour. It lacked the majesty of a June thunderstorm, but had distinct charms of its own. The birds chirped and sang throughout the downpour and the cattle pastured as if they found it refreshing. When it had passed and drifted away with a broken rainbow on its back it left a world wonderfully bejewelled and “bedewed with liquid odours.” Those who had been driven to the shelter of the shade trees in the cornfield protested that they could see the corn growing during the shower. Anyway, the already fresh fields were made still fresher and the delights of the morning were multiplied.

“There will be wild strawberries along the railroad,” was the announcement after the shower, and an investigation brought results. The berry pickers got a couple of quarts of small but juicy and full-flavoured berries, and now there is a “trifling, foolish” shortcake “toward”—not one of those with layers of cake laid on rows of white indurated knobs that passes for strawberry shortcake at our best restaurants, but a fat shortcake made of biscuit dough, split open, buttered, filled and smothered with crushed wild strawberries, each of which has more flavour than a basketful of your big, watery, tame berries. Also there will be plenty of fresh cream—but why make you envious!

Wherefore, all ye who were addressed in the opening sentence and have pursued the narrative thus far, you may rest assured that the country is still all that you have dreamed. In fact it is probably more. Not only has it all its olden joys, but many of its discomforts and drawbacks have disappeared. There is nothing of value in the city that you cannot have in the country, and even the cities themselves have been brought near by improved transportation. The village stores and groceries now sell fruits and delicacies that could be secured a few years ago only in the best city markets. There are churches and good schools everywhere and facilities for every reasonable enjoyment. And above all there is the glorious country itself, with its fresh air, green fields, cool woods, and stainless summer skies. Days like this make one forget the storms and winter weather but modern homes and good roads are making these less trying. Every year conditions are improving and every year the farmers are enjoying more and more “the glorious right of being independent.” Those who dream of a country life do well, and it is to be hoped that some day their dreams may come true. A few days like this can make up for years in the city.

Some men talk modestly about their abilities when they should be apologizing for their privileged opportunities.

A JUNE REVERIE

Once more we are “knee-deep in June,” and in the little lull between the corn and the hay we are able to look about us—and enjoy. Everywhere there is a luxuriance of life and the promise of harvest, and over all the great serenity of nature. Each year I seem to get nearer to the heart of things in this elemental world, that is forever re-creating all forms, all forces and all desires, so that the great drama of life may sweep on to unknown climaxes. It is a world of mysteriously beautiful activities that can be reached only through the gates of toil, and its wonders have never been said or sung. It is a world of “Mandragora” and “drowsy sirops,” and those who reach it are smitten with the enchantment of the lotus-eaters. Having tasted the stream of life at its source, their lips are touched with a divine silence. If the poets—the indolent singers of imagined joys—have penetrated the arcana of nature they have left no song to allure us on the path they have trod. In the workaday world the poets are with me at all times and their glowing phrases spring to my lips at every turn, but at the heart of things I am left to stammer for myself. They have sung the “wrath of the son of Peleus,” “justified the ways of God to man,” and hymned the mountain daisy, but the great epic of life and the joy of life is still unsung. Before it can be sung, poets and their lovers must become in accord with life, the necessary work of the world must be made a joy instead of slavery, and the swiftly-turning pages of the book of destiny must be read by a race of men free and equal. It will be the song of a far and perfect time towards which we are stumbling, but even now we can catch strains of its swelling music.

This morning, while listening to the wind “lulling the long grass,” I caught a flash such as might have illumed Hypatia when expounding Homer to the students of Alexandria. I have seen it argued that the Iliad is not a narrative of real events, but a piece of wonderful symbolism. It has been asserted that the siege of Troy is but “a repetition of the daily siege of the East by the solar powers that every evening are robbed of their brightest treasures in the west; and the Homeric heroes and their exploits all represent allegorically, in one form or another, the great conflict between Light and Darkness.” For a blazing moment I realized that the Iliad is perhaps as true of the fields of Ontario as it was of “the windy plains of Troy.” The Judgment of Paris is being re-enacted every day. To every country boy come dreams of wealth and power such as Juno might give; glimpses of Minerva-like wisdom revealed in the workings of nature; flashes of supernal beauty that suggest the allurements of Aphrodite, and he must choose between them and make his award as surely as did the Idalian shepherd. Following this hint, it would not be hard to symbolize from familiar life all the characters of the world’s greatest epic and show that the Trojan War is being unfolded in our prosaic fields. Moreover, we may see that Homer suggested the possibility of three epics when he wrote one. If Juno had been adjudged the fairest, Paris would have been a greater Alexander or Napoleon triumphantly ruling a conquered world. But this would be beyond human experience. If he had given the award to Minerva he would have been the ideal philosopher, who would make over the world in a way that would more than realize the dream of every reformer that ever lived. This, too, would transcend human experience. But he chose the pursuit of pleasure and beauty and brought ruin to himself and

And this brings the Iliad wholly within human experience.

Looking about me in the divine hours of summer, when the world is still as young as it was at Creation’s dawn, I find in this everyday life the possibilities of every poem that ever was written or dreamed. And enfolding them all, I am aware of the great epic of life that at once fascinates and eludes the imagination.

JUNE JINKS

Did someone say “knee-deep in June”? Why, we are in over our heads—fairly drowned in June. It is June from the grass-roots to the tree-tops—perhaps even to the height where the airships pass over. Because the flowers and leaves were delayed so long by the cool spring they came out with a rush when the hot weather came, and as yet there is no sign of withering or fading. Everything is fresh and full of perfume and the pride of youth. The days have been hot—almost too hot for comfort, but it is June, and we are willing to put up with a good deal of heat when we see it doing such wonders for the crops. The fall wheat, spring wheat, barley and oats are climbing up out of the ground every minute and giving their colour aright. The hay is thriving so lustily that I am afraid the haying will be on us before we are quite ready for it, for the wet spring made the preparation of the corn ground slower than it should be. The couple of acres we planted last Saturday sprouted as if it had been planted in a hotbed, and the rows are visible to the naked eye of even a blackbird. If all goes well the rest of the field will be planted before this appears in print. Then we can perhaps breathe for a few days before the clover will be ready for cutting. But it will not be for many days. I haven’t had a chance to go and see it, but I have been told that it will be ready for the mower in less than a week, and in the meantime it is June. Just as it was beginning to look as if we were going to have too long a spell of dry weather a real June thunderstorm came up in the night and gave everything the soaking it needed. So it is no wonder that the birds are all singing June! June! June! and even a farmer with the skin barked off the end of his most useful typewriting finger is trying to hold himself in and keep from dropping into poetry. June, June, puts the world in tune. There you are. Let us change the subject.

A CANADIAN GARDEN

This is a wonderful year for roses. In the early morning when they are drenched with dew every bush looks like a fairy fountain where the universal life force is bubbling up in beauty of form and colour and perfume. And the roses are not alone. All the other old-fashioned flowers, the marigolds, petunias, larkspurs, poppies, and hyacinths, are sending up their jets of tremulous loveliness. As I look at them with eyes refreshed by sleep I realize the truth of that verse in the Koran which says:

Not even the fabled

can surpass a Canadian garden, brimming with the old-fashioned flowers beloved in childhood. As I linger among them the years fall from me like an “envious shadow.” I press the delicate blooms to my face, inhale their fragrance, and let my whole being vibrate with the joy of life until my heart joins in the morning chorus of the birds. And then the great sun swings up and the day’s work begins.

THE ROSE BUSH

There is a rose tree on the place that is certainly a wonder. I suppose I should say a rose bush, but this specimen has at least some of the qualities of a tree. Though it starts from the ground as a bush, each separate branch is branched like a tree, and some of them are so tall that I have to pull them down to get at the top-most roses. In the centre the bush must be fully eight feet high. At the present time it is covered with large red roses, and the ground under it is covered with the red petals. I do not know what variety it is, as I am not skilled in roses, but I wish we had a hedge of these bushes. It bears roses all through the season, and I remember that its last offerings last year were in November, at the time of the last school fair. Besides being so prolific of blooms, it is pleasantly perfumed, and on a dewy morning exhales its incense over the lawn and garden. This particular rose bush, which is certainly the largest I have ever seen, has a history of vicissitudes. It was received as a present about a dozen years ago, and as its qualities were not known it was planted in a fence corner, where the cattle used to reach over and keep it nibbled down. When we started to plant a rose garden some years ago we moved it to its present position, and surprised it with a lavish application of fertilizer. It immediately took heart and began to show us what it can do. For the past three years it has been yielding a steady supply of roses through the season, from June to November, and this year it is surpassing itself. It is the pride and delight of the farm, and no time need be taken from the work of greater production to keep it thriving. It grows as if it were a pest instead of a thing of beauty.

GARDENING

In spite of the fact that I am opposed to gambling in all its forms, I am going to take a chance on muskmelons. I know that it is a form of gambling that leads to many bitter disappointments. No devotee of the roulette wheel ever licked his fevered lips with more strained anticipation as the whirring ball dropped to rest in a numbered compartment than does the amateur gardener when a muskmelon is being cut. Will it prove full fleshed and richly flavoured—a dainty fit “for Juno when she banquets”—or will it resemble nothing so much as a weak, dispirited cucumber? It is a nerve-racking gamble, but if you win once in a season the winning makes up for all the disappointments—especially if you happen to have the right friend with you to enjoy the triumph.

Speaking of having the right friend at hand to share one’s triumphs reminds me that while sowing the lettuce a thought came to me that seems worth recording. Success at gardening seems to depend almost entirely on the spirit in which the work is done. If it is done with no thought but the enjoyment to be had later, it seems as if it could not fail. The garden that is meant to serve the needs of a home, where time and labour are not counted, always succeeds. I have seen many and none of them failed. The failures come when the garden is regarded as a money-making institution. The best it produces must go to the market, and in competition with the professional market gardener the amateur is almost bound to fail, unless he keeps at it until he becomes a professional himself. By sending the best to the market he and his family get nothing of value from the garden. Interest in it wanes and it sinks into neglect.

This thought has a broader application and is capable of a much more notable illustration. It had long been a source of wonder to me how the fishermen, sailors, shepherds and men of all occupations but farming succeeded as pioneers in the new world. Without knowledge of forestry or farming they cleared the land, made homes and brought up their families. The explanation is simple: they had only one purpose in life; they were bound to get homes; all their energies were directed to that end; they did not consume themselves in an attempt to make money and get rich; they did not scrimp themselves and sacrifice everything in their rage for dollars; they were therefore able to make homes. To have no ambition beyond providing permanently for food, shelter and clothing of the simplest kind hardly seems a worthy ambition in this age of strenuous effort and startling successes. And yet it was on just that humble ambition that Canada as a nation was founded. Of course many of the descendants of the home-seekers have developed all kinds of ambitions, but it is still possible to find those of the second and third generation who, having this one ambition gratified, are therewith content. They are most restful people to associate with, and are the best of neighbours. They regard life with a homely philosophy, slightly tinged with wonder. They look out on the stir and bustle of the world as something in which they have no part. Such people are a joy to the home-returned traveller, who has seen “the anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow between their shoulders.” They will listen undoubtingly to his tales of wonder, only occasionally winking at one another behind his back. They are the solid citizens of the country, and it will be too bad if they ever become infected with the money lust. But this is wandering far from the garden and the lettuce bed—all of which goes to show that you can raise other things besides vegetables in a garden.

A SUMMER STORM

On the way home I had an experience that I had not enjoyed since returning to the farm. While we were busy cleaning out the well, clouds began to gather, and even though a thunderstorm did not develop, rain began to fall. It was a sun shower of the kind that used to make children sing:

We had no time to make a dash for the house, so we took shelter under some spreading beech trees at the edge of the woods. There used to be a tradition that lightning never strikes a beech tree, but that was not our reason for choosing them. They had the thickest branches and most plentiful leaves and offered a better umbrella. At the beginning of the shower tree-toads began to call, and many kinds of birds sounded notes that were unfamiliar. Everything seemed too happy to keep still. The cattle in the pasture stopped eating as if to stand and enjoy the cooling, shower bath. The sunlight filtered through the falling rain and altogether the scene was one that offered nature at her best. But before long the rain began to drip through our roof and we had to do a lot of stepping about before we found a comfortably dry spot under the thick trunk of a leaning maple. As there was no lightning there was no objection to leaving the beech trees. Presently the shower passed and we walked home with everything greatly refreshed. But when I looked at the thermometer and found that it stood at ninety-six in the shade I almost wilted. If I had known it was so hot I wouldn’t have dreamed of undertaking so strenuous a job as cleaning out a well.

A CROW HUNT

Since men began to cultivate corn, crows have been taking toll of the crops, and many and various have been the scarecrows that have been devised to keep them out of the fields. I have seen stuffed figures made to represent awesome and dangerous men and women, windmills with clappers on them, pieces of tin or mirrors hung so that they would revolve and send out sudden flashes of light, bells hung so that they would ring whenever the wind stirred, and many other frightful contrivances. Indeed, I think that scarecrows might be studied carefully by antiquarians and philosophers, and if one took in at the same time all the social, political, theological, artistic, and financial scarecrows that have been flaunted before mankind it should be possible for a new Teuffelsdroch to compile another Sartor Resartus for the amusement and edification of mankind. But the need for a working scarecrow that would keep the crows from pulling up my corn was so immediate that I had no time to take up this aspect of the problem. Long experience has taught people that no scarecrow can compare with a dead crow hung conspicuously in the field. As soon as the crows see it they call a mass meeting and caw fiercely against the cruelty of farmers. After they have scolded until they are tired and hungry they go away from that field of death and light in the field of some neighbour who uses ordinary scarecrows. This involves a nice question of morals which I leave to more subtle brains and more tender consciences. If scaring the crows from my field sends them to pillage the field of my neighbour am I to blame for the damage they do? This is a point to be thought out in the long winter evenings. At this busy time I simply realized the need of scaring the crows from my own field, and taking the rifle I wandered away to the woods.

It was a beautiful, lazy summer afternoon, with thunder in the air, and I was glad that crow hunting is about the most leisurely occupation known to man. If you stir around, the watchful crows will see you and keep out of range, but if you hide in a good place and keep perfectly still a crow may light in some stag-topped tree and wait long enough for you to get a shot at him. The woodlot is a narrow strip, not too dense, and when hiding in the middle of it I would have almost every tree within range. I could hear young crows cawing and squawking in one corner of the patch, and knew it might be possible to sneak up on them, but that meant an amount of exertion that suited neither the day nor my mood. Selecting a cradle knoll under a shady tree, where I had a good view of the woods, I made myself comfortable and began to wait. A killdeer began to scream and flap around, and that called my attention to the watering pond beside me. It is a hollow scooped out of the earth, with a quicksand bottom, that gives an unfailing supply of fresh, cold water. There were lily pads on the edge, and a couple of dragon-flies were flashing back and forth over the surface. On a muddy spot at the far side there was a cluster of yellow cabbage butterflies, and here and there I could see the staring eyes of a frog. The time, the place, and the materials were all at hand for a nature study, and I could think of no better way of passing the time. Rousing myself to observe the life about me, I was delighted to see a mud turtle on the bottom of the pond. It was partly concealed by some lily pads and to the eyes of a casual observer might pass for a water-logged piece of board. Although mud turtles have not figured much in literature, I was at once reminded of an almost appropriate quotation:

Of course, the mud turtle didn’t have any hair, but otherwise the quotation was satisfactory.

I do not think I have ever seen a comprehensive essay on the turtle, although there is enough scattered information to make a book. Since the earliest times turtle eggs have been the stay of shipwrecked mariners and marooned pirates, though I do not think I should care for them as a steady diet. I remember finding some turtle eggs buried in a sand bank beside a deep hole in the railroad ditch, and they looked like ping-pong balls, though ping-pong was not invented until many years after I had made my find. Though I knew that many of the heroes of my early reading had lived on turtle eggs for years I did not try them. Hens’ eggs were too cheap and plentiful at the time. But to go back to the dawn of history, the turtle has at all times appealed to the imagination. The ancients believed that the earth was based on the back of a gigantic turtle—a most comfortable belief, for the turtle moves so slowly and cautiously that there would be no danger that it would be joggled off. It is also interesting to note that turtle soup dates back to prehistoric times. Then, again, we have terrapin, the most aristocratic of turtles, whose flesh is so highly prized by epicures that restaurateurs cannot get enough of it and are compelled to serve stewed muskrat as a substitute. Just as I had finished chuckling over this recollection and was switching to turtle soup and other phases of the turtle question a young crow lit in a tree a few rods away and squawked. It is needless to go into the details of the tragedy. He is now hanging by one leg in the middle of the cornfield, and the indignant crows are all going to other people’s fields for their breakfasts. Strange to say my conscience does not trouble me greatly about this development.

Before starting home with my crow I returned to my study of Sabrina. I wanted her to give me an exhibition of swimming. Besides, it seemed to me that it was a long time since she had breathed. Although turtles are perfectly at home under water, they are forced to come to the surface sometimes to breathe. I do not remember seeing anywhere just how long a turtle can stay under water. I have seen them come up to breathe, and they are very skilful in doing it. They push up their noses beside a lily pad and make no more disturbance than a rising bubble. But it seemed as if my turtle would never come up. I had been watching it for fully half an hour and it had not stirred. As I had performed my mission to the woods, I finally got impatient and, picking up a stick, I threw it into the water right above the turtle. It never stirred. Then I went closer and made the startling discovery that it was not a turtle after all. It was simply a water-logged piece of board. But do you think I am going to throw away this nature study of the turtle for that reason? I should say not.

THE SOLITUDE OF RAIN

Being something of an amateur in solitude, I always enjoy discovering a new kind. I have enjoyed the solitude of open fields, of deep woods, of a mountain top—or at least of a great hill, for I am no mountain climber—of a starry winter night, of a mid-summer dawn, of a mountain lake, and even the depressing solitude of an alien crowd. And yesterday I enjoyed the solitude of a great rain. All morning I had been working in my tent in the woods and for some hours had been so still that the trees had forgotten I was there. Even the black squirrel that has built his summer nest of leaves in the nearest maple, about twenty feet above my head, was hopping about grubbing for his dinner without giving me a thought. Then the rain came—a still summer downpour without wind or thunder and lightning. I looked up from my work—and then found that I could not return to it. The woods seemed to be suddenly alive with a life with which I was not familiar. The beating of the rain on the leaves sounded like the murmur of innumerable voices speaking a language I did not know. The falling rain broke into a mist or gathered on the leaves and fell in great drops. As I listened the conviction grew that the trees and shrubs and flowers and weeds were expanding to enjoy the solitude. They felt safe from intrusion and espial, for no human creature would be about in such a storm. Suddenly I realized that I was an alien in the midst of a timorous life that had a capacity to enjoy, even more than I, the communion of nature. I realized more than ever the conceit which makes man regard the world as anthropocentric. With his limited intelligence he dares to think that his life is the only one that matters in a world where all things are alive—or rather where life is continuous and takes on many forms, of which man is only one. Why should not the trees be the central and most important life form? For certainly they are more imposing in appearance and infinitely more numerous than men. In the solitude of the rain I felt that I was the only living thing that was self-centred and alone. When the rain passed all things resumed their shy reticence.

“THE MAN WITH THE HOE”

Having hoed corn until, when I close my eyes, I can see nothing but rows of green hills stretching away in every direction, I think I have a right to talk about “The Man with the Hoe” from a labouring man’s point of view. Of all who have written about Millet’s great picture, at least, of those who have written with the most authority, I doubt if one ever held a hoe in his hand. Jean François Millet, however, knew what he was doing. The son of a French peasant, he spent his youth as a farm labourer, and the great charm of his work is due to the fact that he painted peasant life with a sympathy born of knowledge. I don’t know what his political opinions were, but I feel certain that he never meant “The Man with the Hoe” to be the frontispiece of a socialistic tract. Let me whisper something to you. The first time I saw “The Man with the Hoe” I saw nothing repulsive or pitiful in it. I was too familiar with similar scenes to be shocked. Indeed, I felt that, with a few changes such as having burning stumps and log heaps in the background to give the smoke and atmosphere, it might be called “The Pioneer” for it was just such peasants from France, Germany, England, Scotland and Ireland, who cleared away the Canadian forests and built that portion of the Empire we are enjoying. This peasant had been rushing at his work and had stopped panting, just as I had often seen similar men stop to rest in the new clearings. And the men I had seen were smoke-grimed and sweaty, and doubtless unlovely from an aesthetic point of view, but they were nation-builders, nonetheless, and I respected them.

It was some years afterwards that Mr. Edwin Markham came along with a great rambling poem and bade me see everything differently.

Unfortunately I have no copy of the poem at hand, but I remember that there is a deal of skimble, scamble stuff about “The breath that blew out the light behind that brain,” and “the hand that sloped back that brow,” and something or other that had made him “the brother to the ox.”

The trouble with Markham was that he had burned midnight oil instead of log heaps and had grubbed out Latin roots instead of stump roots. He worked up an entirely unnecessary kind of sympathy with the subject of the painting. Neither happiness nor moral qualities have anything to do with the tall white brows on which academic men like Markham love to look.

Some day a Canadian artist will paint a companion picture to “The Man with the Hoe” and call it “The Pioneer.” A large order you may say, but I am not so sure of that, the material parts are still available and I am sure an artist will arise with the necessary imagination. If Markham saw in Millet’s picture the weight of centuries, I want to see in the new picture the hope of coming centuries. I want the smoke of the stump fires to tell how the uncouth labourer conquering a new world has his pillar of smoke by day and his pillar of fire by night, and was as certainly God-led as was Moses and his hosts when marching towards the Promised Land. And I want the pioneer in my picture to be what he was—gnarled, grimy, toil-spent. Let the great forests encircle him about and the earth be stubborn to his hand so that the fullness of his victory may be shown. I don’t care whether his eye be vacant or his brow receding or his underjaw loose and drooling. If the work is done with sympathy, I shall know and all the world shall know, that his soul burned with the fire that is kindled at the altar of nations. You and I have homes where we enjoy our freedom, aspire to culture and presume to taste; because of their foundations just such men are buried. If I had that picture I would give it a place among the family portraits more honoured than that given to any veritable crayon worked up from a solar print because I am proud to feel that I am kin to that eager, home-hungry, God-compelled man.

Now about real hoeing—not the kind that is done with the brush of the artist or the pen of the poet, but the kind that you do under the broiling sun with a real hardware-store hoe. Well, it might be worse. If you go at it in a reasonable way and not like the man who starts in on Friday to do three days’ work before Sunday, you can live through it. By the way, it has just occurred to me that the reason many people keep the Sabbath so cheerfully is because they know in their hearts that they are not losing anything. During the weekdays they kept to work with such a rush that they put in an extra day’s work themselves and squeezed in an extra day out of the hired hand between Monday and Saturday. But to resume: When a man begins with a hoe he is likely to think the handle is far too long. As he stoops over to pull out a weed, or thistle that is in the hill of corn, he doesn’t bother to straighten up before resuming work with the hoe. He whacks away and pulls more weeds and hurries along and whacks some more and pulls some more weeds—and then he feels like straightening up for a breath of air. What a backache he has! Whew! But if he has ordinary intelligence it dawns on him about then that the reason why hoes have long handles is so that people will not have to stoop over. Of course, he must stoop occasionally to get a particularly stubborn weed, but it is wonderful how close one can go to the tender stalks with the sharp hoe without cutting them. Before long you are pushing down the stalks with the back of the hoe so that you can get at that weed without stooping, and then you whack away and perhaps whistle a little, and first thing you know you are thinking about something else or listening to the birds. Bobolinks are at their best during hoeing time. Every few minutes

I wonder why Archibald Lampman changed “bobolink” to “wandering thrush” when he put his poem in book form. In the magazine version it was “bobolink” and I thought then, and still think, it was one of the happiest touches in the poem. Just listen to the next bobolink you hear, and notice how perfectly the word revolving describes his tumble of notes.

When I stop to lean on my hoe, which I do frequently, not because I am tired, but because I want to see the beauty of the “heat-held land,” I look at the landscape through the eyes of William Wilfred Campbell. The fields and the woods are

The haying has commenced, and in a field to the south they are piling it on the waggon and hauling it to the stable. The cattle are chewing the cud under the shade of trees and—but we must get on with this hoeing. Still there is no law against a fellow thinking while he works, is there? If some young artist paints that picture of “The Pioneer” I know wealthy art patrons who would be willing to pay him as much as thirty-five dollars for it—to encourage native art. Funny, isn’t it, that men who will pay a thousand dollars for some of the sweepings of European Studios will have the conceit to think they are encouraging native art if they pay thirty-five dollars for a really meritorious piece of work. But perhaps I have wronged these excellent men. I really believe that if the artist held out for forty dollars some of them would generously offer to split the difference and give him thirty-seven fifty.

There! That’s what comes of not having one’s mind on one’s work—cut out a whole hill of corn, and a big one at that! Guess I’ll have a drink of oatmeal water! Isn’t it wonderful how fond insects are of oatmeal water! I do believe that grasshoppers come half way across the farm to commit suicide in my pail. Well, as a neighbour says, I must be keppin’ at it. Whack, whack! There is an almost vicious delight in cutting down thistles with their defiant “Noli me tangere” expression. But I like the Scotch thistle—“Wha daur meddie wi’ne?” Whack! Whack! Say, but it is hot today! Yet who that knows Lampman’s poem can help appreciating just such heat as this.

What’s that? The call for dinner? Well, it is about time. The eleven forty-five went by over an hour ago.

COCKING HAY

Cocking hay has always been an evening job, and now it is a Saturday evening job. Since the introduction of hay-loaders most of the hay is gathered direct from the windrows, even though the best authorities on hay-making agree that hay that has been allowed to sweat in the field for a few days is best. But with all the improved implements a farmer sometimes reaches Saturday evening with more hay down than he can possibly haul in, and it has to be cocked up, for fear of a Sunday storm and to keep it from bleaching too much in the sunshine.

Possibly there are farmers who do this kind of work in the middle of the day, but I do not remember having seen them at it. My earliest recollections go back to dim figures moving in the twilight and heaping the new-mown hay in nicely rounded piles. Of course there is a good reason why cocking hay should be an evening job. After being cut the grass needs several hours of sunshine to dry it properly, and as a rule it is evening before what has been cut is fit to be gathered.

In the pioneer days gathering hay was picturesque enough to tempt the brush of a Millet, though I cannot remember at this moment any great picture dealing with the subject. After the mowers had laid down the field with their scythes the rakers began to follow them with the old wooden hand-rakes. This task often fell to the lot of the children, and they went at it in an orderly way, according to their size and strength. The youngest and weakest would take the first swath and move along raking it across on to the second. The one who followed would have to take these two swaths and rake them across onto the third. The strongest raker would take the last swath farther along to make the windrow. They would then return in the same order on the opposite side of the windrow, and so complete it. After them the men would come along with their forks and make the coils or cocks. This work was usually done by the mowers, as an evening chore after they had put in a full day with the scythes. Raking a heavy crop of hay with the hand-rakes was a heavy task, and there is still a tradition in this district of a stout Scotch girl who always took charge of the work on her father’s farm. She would take her place on the middle swath, with her youngest sister on the first swath and the hired man on the last. All the way across the field she would keep her gang moving by shouting “Gries ort” (Hurry up) to her sister, and “Cum suas” (Keep up) to the hired man. But sulky rakes and hay-loaders have robbed hay-making of its most picturesque qualities, though I cannot help thinking that it would be worthwhile for some artist to reassemble the pioneer scene on account of its historical as well as artistic value. As the work was always at its height about sunset he need not lack for colour to give his picture due charm.

WHEN THE RAIN CAME

When the rain came! How shall I write or say or sing or in any way tell what joy there was in our little world when the rain came? For weeks the sun had been pouring down intolerable heat, and the springs went dry and the grass withered and all signs failed. It was in vain that we studied the sunsets of gold and cinnabar and dawns of pearl and chrysoprase. The fountains of the deep were sealed. The noonday was a furnace and there was no relief in the night. Never before in the memory of man had there been such heat and drought, and the farmers themselves began to look as if they would dry up and blow away, they were so tanned and sunburned and heat-scorched by work in the hay fields. The cattle panted under the shrivelling shade trees and scarcely lifted their heads when little whirlwinds sucked up the dust from the burned pastures. The birds sang, but their music was almost an irritation in that fever and swelter. Heat, heat, nothing but sunshine and heat through the long insufferable day, and still heat in the sleepless, dewless night. Surely the land had been forgotten or a curse had been put upon it. And then the rain came!

What do the people who live in cities know of the infinite blessing of rain? A passing watercart or a squirting garden hose satisfies their shrivelled needs. But with us in the country it is different. When we need rain we need rivers and oceans of it, and this time we needed it as never before. And just as hope was beginning to fail thunderheads began to push up along the horizon. But the rain did not come. Time and again storms gathered in the west, but those who were watching reported drearily: “Gone to the north,” or “Gone to the south.” Sometimes a wide-winged storm would cast its shadow over us and sprinkle us with a few big drops and a cool wind would blow from it, but there is little satisfaction in being cooled with the wind from other people’s rain.

After some days of this teasing, a storm came that somehow could not slip off to the north or to the south. It came at us squarely with a front like Niagara and a great rushing wind before it. It crackled with thunder and blazed with lightning, and the first downpour was mingled with hail. It lasted for only a few minutes, but while it lasted it was a veritable cloud-burst. The spouting eaves could not carry all their treasure, but overflowed in splashing and tinkling rivulets. And the murmur we heard was not all of the falling rain. It was full of the thanksgiving of the grass and of the leaves that were held up like cupped palms to catch the reviving shower. When the cloud passed and the sun came out a great sigh of relief seemed to go up from all nature and once more the music of the birds was grateful and sweet to hear.

But though the first shower was good it was but a sup to the thirsty earth. An hour after it had fallen there was not even a puddle left for the children to paddle in with bare feet, but the corn leaves had uncurled and were shining with tender green. The next day was hot, but early in the afternoon great clouds began to pile in the sky and storms began to pass to the north and south. Presently one came to us, and when it had passed the children saw for the first time in their lives a perfect rainbow. It arched the sky magnificently, but we rejected its promise of fair weather. We wanted more rain, and realized as never before the wisdom of the words that Agur, the son of Jakeh, spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal: “There are three things that are never satisfied—yea four things that say not, It is enough.” And one of these four things is “the earth that is not filled with water.” Fortunately our hope was not disappointed. The rainbow as a sign of fair weather proved as false as all the signs that had failed us when it was dry. The next day came hot and steamy, with thunder rumbling in the distance and a curtain of clouds overhead. All day it continued to get darker and at last a still rain came from the south. It was one of those satisfying downpours that soak in as they fall, and it brought peace and healing and renewed life. And we knew that the land had not been forgotten and that there was not a curse upon it.

While sitting listening to the rain I felt that I, too, was being refreshed and revived. Scraps of poetry floated through my memory, murmurous and melodious, and when the wind stirred it brought memories of the sea—not of the sea when tempestuous and plangent, but of the soothing hours when

One poem above all others seemed to fit my mood, and I began to piece it together as line by line it came back to me. It was Henry Kendall’s wonderful poem which I had clipped from a paper years ago and had unconsciously committed to memory through many readings:

At first I could not understand why this particular poem was haunting me, but presently I understood. It is interwoven with the imagery of the rain. Listen to this:

The night closed in with the warm rain pouring from the chambers of the south, and when I went to bed in the tent I could hear it beating over me. It was a good sound, a sleepy sound, and more soothing than poppies and mandragora and all the drowsy sirops of the world. In the morning the rain-drenched earth was glistening with moisture, and I went to the cornfield to cultivate. It was a joy to work the ground in the condition it was in, and I went at it with a will. Although the corn is no better than it should be after the long dry spell, I have broken up the “capillaries” and have a “dust mulch” in that field that scientific farmers would come miles to see if they knew about it. The weather is cool, and it looks as if the rain were over for a while, but we have had enough for the present, and already the drought is almost forgotten. It was terrible while it lasted, but everything was filled with new life when the rain came.

NEARING THE HARVEST

See the country now, when the fields are full of the harvest. Growth has not yet given place to ripeness and all things are exuberant with life. Although the clover is being cut it is in full bloom and flooding the air with perfume. The wheat fields are showing the first touch of gold, and the passing breezes stir a shimmer of silver on the oats. The corn stands in even ranks and the waving of the long leaves gives a feeling that only a word of command is needed to start the hills marching to some land of dreams. In fields and woods and orchards young birds are learning to fly and are gaping and chirping for food. Young squirrels are playing and exploring the wonderful world into which they have been born. Youth and life and happiness are abounding everywhere. Even the pests and blights seem to fit into the general scheme of things. This morning I was passing a wild plum tree and stopped to see if we are to have any of this full-flavoured native fruit. Although there were many “pocket plums” destroyed by fungus, and although the curculio had taken toll, there were still enough sound green plums to give promise of an abundant harvest. The life force that finds expression in that tree had insured reproduction by its sheer prodigality. It provided enough for all pests and blights and even though our harvesting will be the most disastrous of all it is certain that enough ripe plums will be eaten uncooked, and the pits thrown away to provide future plum trees. Nature has learned nothing of man’s efficiency and control. She achieves her ends by reckless wastefulness. But probably that is because nature has learned nothing of man’s sense of personal property and ownership. All things are in common and life surges triumphantly over all obstacles.

In days such as we are having—warm, steamy, with little drifting showers—it seems almost possible to realize the oneness of life from the deep-hidden crystal in the rock to the searching eagle. There are moments when the old myths seem to have an all-embracing meaning. Were the Titans buried under the rocks, and is their life escaping through the universal mystery of growth? There are scientists who claim that even the inorganic world has its low forms of growth that may be detected even in minerals. These minerals of the Titans’ prison house have a life that in its disintegration furnishes food to the plants that in their turn furnish food to insects and creatures that serve as food for higher forms of life. Upward and outward the struggle goes on forever. While I was meditating on this a couple of hawks began to circle up from the woods and went up and up till they passed from sight. Their quest could not be for food. What aspiration guided them in that high flight? Was it the impulse of Titan life to escape from its prison house? And even when man takes wing and outsoars the eagles is it wholly for the purpose of war? Perhaps even he is yearning for the freedom of outer space, though he is too modern and prosaic to confess the emotions by which he is stirred. Some day a poet less militant than D’Annunzio may seek the upper solitudes and bring us back a song untouched by materialism and sordidness. In hours like these the fable of Prometheus seems very real and the rising tides of life suggest that his bonds have been broken.

Having made a truce with reason let us pursue the whim even further. Man seems to be the one creature in the living world who is out of touch with the oneness of life. Has he been betrayed by his intelligence? He has reasoned on his hopes and fears and has built and prepared his defences until he has little left that is worth defending. He has isolated himself from the wholesome impulses of universal life and created for himself a mechanical world in which he is enslaved. While boasting the conquest of nature, man’s fiercest and most devastating wars are with man. He cannot win control of nature until he wins self-control. Nature provides lavishly the riches that he may shape for his needs, but his selfishness leads him to plunder his fellows. Instead of striving to learn the great purposes of life he thinks out little purposes of his own and threatens to wreck the world in his efforts to carry them through. He cherishes the narrow intelligence based upon his own purblind experience, instead of opening his mind and his heart to the infinite intelligence that directs the forces against which he makes puny battle. Instead of moving forward on the waves of life to higher intelligence he builds his cockle-shell arks to protect him from disasters that are due to his own mistakes. Catch but one glimpse of the prodigal intelligence that directs all life—an intelligence as prodigal as life—and man and his works are petty and pitiful. He could be borne on to infinite things but the intelligent little microbe, fussing and fretting, must shape and direct for himself. And he is burying himself under his crushing achievements even more securely than the Titans were buried under the rocks.

BY THE SUN

One morning while pitching sheaves in the wheat field I glanced up at the sun to see the time of day. At once I remembered all the homilies I have read about workmen who watch the clock, and felt ashamed. But a moment’s reflection made me feel better. The city workman who watches the clock seldom glances at the sun. The man who has the sun for his clock has for his fellow-workers the light, the heat, the wind and the rain, and these take no notice of the eight-hour day. These are pace-makers that no man can keep up with except for a few days during rush times on the farm. As I turned this over in my mind the cities suddenly seemed very far away. As a matter of fact I had barely glanced at the papers since the wheat harvesting began. We were living in a different world and our interest was in another kind of news. The variations of the weather had an interest more absorbing than the fluctuations of the stock market. And the world in which we are living is older than all the civilizations recorded in history. Bread came from the earth in the time of Job as it does today. Though we now gather the sheaves to the barns, the purpose is the same as when the sheaves were gathered to the winnowing floors in the days of the patriarchs. And I have no doubts that the husbandmen of those days watched the weather as keenly as the farmers of today. And in spite of all the improvements of machinery the men who do the harvesting today work as hard as they did in the days of the sickle. Improved machinery does not lessen the amount of labour. It simply releases more men for other kinds of labour. And in spite of the changes in man’s methods of dealing with the seed-time and the harvest the ways of nature change not at all. Growth and ripeness come today as they came in the beginning, and in spite of clocks and wrist watches nature continues to work by the sun. If I glanced at the sun to see the time of day I am no longer ashamed. I was working in accord with something older than any enterprise governed by a time clock—and the work took me out of the world of hurry and worry that men have developed for themselves and which they describe as progress and civilization.

HOW TO LOAF

This afternoon I loafed—loafed with all my might. It was the first time since haying began that I really felt rested and fit, and I knew the time had come for me to have a healthful and profitable loaf. Most people loaf when they are tired out. That is a mistake. They are not loafing. They are convalescing. If you loaf when you are feeling strong and well, that is when you store up surplus energy and reserves of strength that will be of value to you in hard sessions later on. At least that is my theory of it, and until some learned scientist proceeds to smash it I shall continue to use my very best times for loafing. It is all right to drudge and toil when one is not feeling fit for anything else, but the supreme moments of life should be saved for enjoyment and loafing. I might not have been able to indulge in this particular loaf had it not been that the whole family was away—visiting, baseball, or something else—and I was at home alone. Both the haying and the wheat harvest are over, and no farm work was pressing anyway. So I took a few sheets of paper, a magazine that I had no intention of reading, and a sofa pillow, and proceeded to a shady spot that is especially adapted to loafing.

Of course the first thing to do when enjoying a loaf is to catch up on arrears of sleep. Placing my ear firmly on the sofa pillow I prepared to snooze, but I really had too much steam in me for immediate sleep. Instead I began to think and half dream in a rambling, inconsequent way. Presently I found myself in a strenuous argument with myself as to whether it would be a proper and pleasant thing to disguise myself as a boy of fifteen, run away somewhere, and begin life over again. Before I had settled this momentous proposition my half-open eye caught sight of something just peeping above the level of the grass a few yards away. I closed my eye and tried to forget it. But it was no use. There was something familiar about the shape of that white glint. Then I remembered, and sat up with a jolt. An open-eyed glance convinced me that the white thing I saw was the top of a pitcher that had been missing for over a week. I had been much blamed for the disappearance of that pitcher, as I have been in the habit of taking it to the field with water. It is not much of a pitcher anyway, has a cracked top—a sort of harelip—but it is handy for a whole lot of things, and I had no business carrying it away and losing it. And there it was, safe and sound. The boys had used it to supply water to the grindstone when sharpening the mower knife. After that satisfactory discovery I replaced my ear on the sofa pillow and resumed my loaf. I would pick up the pitcher some other time when I was not busy. A song sparrow and a robin were singing lustily in the nearby elms. I began to wonder drowsily and dreamily just what their songs might mean. Would it not be glorious if we could understand the exact message of bird songs—what the birds are saying—subject for a poem in that....

PIONEER THRESHING

Wheat threshing is now in progress and, like everything else in the country, it is done in a business-like way, with the greatest possible saving of labour. The old-time feeder, with a couple of fingers wound up in rags on account of having them caught in the teeth of the cylinder, is no longer in evidence; neither is the band cutter with his deadly knife with which he so often hit the hand of the feeder instead of the bands. Both band-cutting and feeding are now done automatically. Even “tending rakers” is not the dirty job it used to be, for the rakers have disappeared. The straw is blown on the stack through a pipe that can be shifted around so as to place the straw just where it is wanted. Of course steam engines have long since taken the place of the old horsepower, and with the change went the most picturesque feature of threshing. The old horsepower with four or five teams tugging at the long arms as they walked about in a circle was a sight worth seeing. And what a hero the driver was to the small boy as he stood in the centre with his long whip making the horses do their work while he shifted his feet constantly on the revolving platform so as to keep from getting dizzy by turning round. From morning till night he cracked his whip, whistled and yelled at the horses. “Hip, hip, hip, there! Keep right up in your harness now! Hip, hip, hip—you will loaf, will you? Take that then, and that! Hip, hip, hip, hey there!” The long lash of his whip would cut along the flanks of the shirkers or the cracker would snap like a pistol at their ears. How proud the boy was who was allowed to climb along one of the arms and stand with that wonderful driver right over the grinding cogwheels! It was something to talk about for months afterwards. But all that is ended, and the next thing we know the threshing machines will be run by Niagara power.

AUTUMN SUNSHINE

The man who enjoys taking things easy whenever he has a chance has no difficulty in deciding just when summer changes to autumn. In the summer-time when he has a little leisure he selects a shady spot to loaf in, but when autumn comes he hunts up a place where he can sit in the sun, while being sheltered from the wind. This fall the sunshine feels especially good, probably because the summer was so cold and wet. I have already picked out all the good places to sit in around the house and the buildings and I am soaking in all the sunshine I missed during the summer. As the mail is delivered every morning just as the chores are done I can take my letters and papers to a comfortable spot and get in touch with the world while luxuriating in the warmth.

I believe it is a good plan to go through one’s mail while sitting in the sunshine. The friendly letters somehow seem friendlier, and even cold, formal, business letters are less depressing. Sometimes I wonder if the people who write me letters wrote them in a gloomy office or while sitting at a desk that was bathed with sunshine. For some reason I always picture the men who sign the cheques that are sometimes enclosed as doing their work in a flood of warm sunshine. The cheques seem to radiate it and to carry to me some part of the cheerful glow. But the men who write the notices from manufacturers of agricultural implements must have their desks in gloomy cellars that are never reached by the sun. I never find a trace of sunshine in them. They bring gloom, and they seem to have been written by some man,

Not even the sunshine can take the curse off a letter which states with grim formality that the note for some indispensable implement will be due on a certain day. But perhaps these notices would be more chilling and repellent if read indoors in a cold and dimly-lit room.

On this matter of liking the sunshine on autumn days I am in entire accord with all the animals on the farm. Sheppy knows all my favourite spots and shows his approval by lying at my feet and sleeping, though the flies that also like the sunshine bother him a lot and keep him snapping at them and wriggling his ears to scare them off. I notice that the cows also avoid the shade trees and lie down to chew their cuds in the sunniest spot they can find. I don’t blame Whitman for wanting to chum with them.

AUTUMN POETRY

A literary critic has been lamenting the absence of good autumn poetry, and those who have been writing to enlighten him on the subject have missed the point entirely. If the days were not so perfect I could find him plenty of autumn poetry. For instance, there is that gem of Carman’s:

and so on and so on. If I were not feeling too lazy to hunt up the volume I could quote enough of this one poem to show that the poetry of autumn surpasses the poetry of spring as much as ripeness surpasses greenness. But even this poem does not do justice to autumn. The poet pictures himself as walking—a form of exercise that is fairly strenuous. In weather such as we are having a poet might dawdle about, but he wouldn’t walk—at least, not in a purposeful way. The poet who lets the mellowness of autumn sink into his system is too bone-lazy to wiggle his fingers in counting feet and matching rhymes. At this time of the year the nine Muses are all taking sun baths and munching the apples of the Hesperides. Those whom they favour are filled with an ineffable content, and steeped in ineluctable sloth. A vast stillness fills the drowsy world, and the little sounds of flies and insects make a droning music that lulls all nature to sleep. The Aeolian harps of the trees are all silent, and the birds are too full of fruits and seeds to strain themselves with song. In the morning the cattle stand in the sun to get warm, and at noon they shift to the shade to get cool, and are almost too lazy to chew the cud. And the poet who is in accord with nature lolls around and eats apples and grapes and pears that are brought to him by admirers—being too lazy to get up and get them for himself. If we were not having such perfect autumn weather I would undertake to prove that even the autumn poetry we have was not written in autumn. It was written in the more active seasons when the memories of autumn sank as a balm on the bruised and overlaboured soul.

DAYS OF COLOUR

Today the world is serenely colourful. Just as nature is beginning to cast her summer clothes into the “rag-bag of the world” she is giving them a dip in her dye vats. Wherever one looks there are “hues of ash and glints of glory.” The stubbles and weeds give a dull foreground, broken here and there by the vivid green of wheat fields, but the forest trees are a marvel and a delight. There is an absence of the flaming scarlet that the maple sometimes shows, but green, yellow green, yellow, yellow red and red are blended into wonderful harmonies. Under the trees in the orchards there are piles of red apples, and in some fields there are golden pumpkins. Wherever one looks there is colour and sunshine and beauty. The wind is from the south, and the only sound it carries, beyond its own murmur, is the brisk crowing of cockerels and the distant cawing of crows. Occasionally a belated fly drones past and dull white butterflies beat with ineffectual wings. The whole world is serene enough to sooth even political passions. Possibly the men with teams who have stopped to talk on the sideroad are discussing politics, but if so they are out of keeping with the picture. They should be discussing crops and other harvest-home topics. Occasionally an automobile goes racing by and I feel like throwing an apple after it for disturbing us with its unmannerly haste. Presently the sun will go down in a haze of gold and mark the end of a perfect day.

AUTUMN ODOURS

This is the season of autumn odours—odours of ripeness that float on the damp air and attract attention more than the perfumes of the seasons of blossoms and flowers. The rains seem to release these odours, or the damp air makes our nostrils more sensitive—anyway, there are odours to be enjoyed in every turn of a walk about a farm just now. Of course, it is impossible to describe them in words, but the odours of ripeness are more bland than those of the blossoming season. Just now the fallen leaves smell like the taste of fresh hickory nuts. And with this odour comes an association of ideas. As soon as it reaches me I stop with one foot in the air like a pointer dog expecting the whirr of a rising partridge. My eyes instinctively search the bare branches for the black glimpse of a squirrel, for the odour at once takes me back to the days when I roamed the woods with the old Injun Chief muzzle-loading shotgun. But the whirr of the partridge no longer goes with the odour of ripe leaves, and even the black squirrel is becoming a memory, though I see one occasionally. The quail are also gone, but they are associated with the damp, earthy odour of stubble-fields or the more pungent odour of meadows. Of course, the orchard has the odour of ripe apples—though they are scarce with us this year—and even the freshly-dug potatoes have an odour of their own that is very distinctive. It is really in the spring, the season of growth, that one notices the odours of decay. A few cabbage leaves will make themselves noticeable in the garden, and dead leaves are not nearly so pleasant. Every season has its own peculiar odours, but those of autumn always make a special appeal. They seem to be associated with hunting and leisure and dreamy autumnal restfulness. Just now they are at their best, and are well worth a country walk. There is nothing like them in the streets.

EARLY FAIRS

Happening to visit one of our cities during the progress of a fall fair I found myself one of the crowd, and the observations I made convinced me that for some time past I have been labouring under a false impression. The crowd was made up almost entirely of farmers, with their wives and families, many of whom were doubtless taking the one holiday they allowed themselves during the year. In moving about since returning to the land I have visited only those portions of the country where farming is most prosperous and where the farmers are up-to-date. This led me to believe that the old-fashioned farmer—the man with bowed back and gnarled hands—had disappeared. I have seen so many farmers riding in automobiles that I thought the plain folks who used to go to the fairs in lumber waggons were a part of the past history of the country. But my experience with the crowd going to the fair showed me that I have been mistaken.

The streets were crowded with slowly-moving groups of people who had a marvellous capacity for getting in one another’s way. Although they did not wear homespun, as in the old days, their store clothes were not made for their strong and often angular bodies, and the effect was much the same as when their clothes were home-made. Here and there you could see up-to-date farmers, who moved about with the air of men who were used to the cities, and only their tanned faces and hands betrayed their occupation. But the vast majority went to make up just such a crowd as one might have seen forty years ago. Family groups would stop to look at the exhibits in store windows and make confusion on the crowded sidewalks. When they talked it was in low tones, almost whispers, as if they were in church and must not speak loud. The wonder in the eyes of many of the younger children showed that this was the first time they had visited the city. My interest in them was particularly keen, for I can still remember the first time I ever walked on the streets of a city, and nothing that I have seen since has equalled the marvels of that day. I wonder if the youngsters I saw were as much afraid of pickpockets as I was, though no enterprising thief would have risked a term in jail for what I had in my pocket. I wish I could know if the display of jackknives in the windows of the hardware stores were as attractive to them, and if the up-to-date chocolates and caramels made their mouths water as the bulls-eyes, stick candy, hoarhound and peppermints of that earlier day made mine water. But there was one thing they missed. There were no gunsmith shops for them to stare into. I can remember yet how I envied those fancy powder horns and shot pouches—for it was still the day of muzzle-loaders—and I can remember how ordinary my Injun Chief looked when compared with the fine double-barrelled shotguns that had a little brass box set in the side of the varnished walnut stock to hold the caps. But I was able to invest in a wad punch, and during the next few weeks all the old felt hats and boot-legs on the place were punched into wads. Of all who were in the crowd going to the fair I envied the boys the most, and wished that I could see the things they were looking at with the same wonder and unspoiled enthusiasm they felt.

GATHERING MUSHROOMS

After many experiments I am convinced that the best and most entirely enjoyable time to gather mushrooms is when there is a driving rain soaking the meadows and stimulating production. Of course, no man who is properly looked after is allowed to gather them at such a time as that, unless he does as I did when the rain was on last week. Everybody was away at a school fair when the rain came up. My first thought was that the rain would bring mushrooms. My second thought was that there had been a shower a couple of days ago, and that the meadow and the cornfield where mushrooms were found had not been properly searched. My third thought was that I would be taking awful chances, but, nevertheless, I would go out to hunt for mushrooms. A pair of rubber boots ensured dry feet, an army rubber cape would keep my shoulders dry, and an old hat that didn’t owe me any money would do for my head. Carrying a paper bag under the cloak and an uneasy conscience under that, I started out into the driving rain. I don’t know whether it is a fact, but the air always seems purer when the rain is falling. Anyway, it was exhilarating, and knowing that I was doing what no sensible man should be doing gave the expedition the zest of an adventure.

When I got to the meadow, I found that I had made no mistake. There were nice, white, rain-washed umbrellas and new mushrooms just poking up through the roots of the grass. I met them right on their arrival and bade them welcome. I found gathering the mushrooms with the rain beating on my face so enjoyable that I did not notice at first certain defects in my outfit. By the time the paper bag was full I began to be conscious of the fact that the rubber cape and rubber boots did not meet. My outfit would have gone well with the kilt, for in such a case I wouldn’t have minded having my knees soaked. As it was I got thoroughly soaked about the knees, so that when I got home I had to change just as if I had taken no precautions at all. But I had the mushrooms and nearly two hours ahead of me before anyone could be expected home. No, I am not going to describe that feast, but I shall record the fact that the only time a man can ever hope to get all the mushrooms he wants is when he dines alone. If Lucullus was in the habit of eating mushrooms I can understand the origin of the phrase “Lucullus dines with Lucullus today.”

Ingratitude is the most common form of self-respect.

PICKING PEARS

There is a pear tree that is hemmed in on one side by an apple tree and on the other by an oak. The result is that the lower branches have died and fallen off and the fruit grows from thirty to forty feet above the ground. For some time past the children had been picking up the wind-falls, ripening them in the bureau drawers, and asking when I was going to pick the pears. When it comes to lofty and fancy climbing I have to do it myself. The youngsters do enough climbing to tear their clothes, but that is all. When we got ready to pick the apples I decided to begin by picking the pears. I have a weakness for these particular pears that made me want to harvest them. This was the only kind on the farm when I was a boy and I have never found others quite like them. They are not of any of the standard varieties, and as they are not good keepers or particularly good for preserves they are not in favour with thrifty people. But as eating pears they are unrivalled. When picked at the right time and hidden in a hay-mow for a few weeks they used to be as delicious to a predatory small boy as hoarded beech nuts to a red squirrel. Even when ripened among the clothes in a bureau drawer they are good enough, though they lack the tang of stolen fruit. This year there was about a bushel on the tree in spite of the spring frost that destroyed most of the blossoms. The longest ladder on the place barely reached to the first branches, but when I had pulled myself up among the fruit I was greatly rewarded. About the first thing that caught my eye was a big, perfect pear lying in a little nest of twigs where several branches were crossing one another. It had evidently ripened early, fallen into this hiding place, and then mellowed in the sun and wind. As I picked it up my thumb made a dent in its soft flesh. A moment later I had sunk my teeth in its rosy, juicy side and my palate was quivering with joy.

While picking the pears I had a chance to overlook the activities of the whole neighbourhood, but my interest was largely centred in my own cornfield, where a band of original Canadians, Indians, were busy husking. That corn had been hanging over me like an incubus, for I thought I would have to husk it all myself, but

and I promptly made a treaty with them. But the consideration was not glass beads and red cotton handkerchiefs. Not at all. They are civilized—as civilized as an imported hired man. They insisted on getting five and a half cents a bushel—“and find themselves.” Reflecting that even at that price I would not make much more than board wages, I agreed to pay. And as I looked at the cornfield from the pear tree I felt glad that I had done so, for real judges have estimated that there will be at least five hundred bushels. I will have enough to do in hauling home the ears and stalks. The piles of yellow ears delighted my eye, and then I noticed the golden sprinkling of pumpkins in the field, and I called down orders for pies. Somehow, in this country life our appetites are always with us.

Looked at from the height I was occupying, the world seemed more alive than usual. I could see men working in their fields or about their buildings for a mile or two in every direction. Ordinarily we see only the people and animals on our own farms, and are oppressed by a sense of loneliness. From my tree-top I could see that I really have neighbours. As I realized this I was struck by the thought that all our activities take place within a few feet of the ground. In spite of our boasted freedom of action we are the slaves of the law of gravity which keeps us “crawling ’twixt the earth and heaven.” But because we can walk and run and travel in trains, and even fly a little, we think ourselves entirely free and are not conscious of the fact that gravity binds us as with chains. Who knows but in a similar way our actions, both moral and intellectual, are governed by laws of which we are unconscious? Perhaps if we could make our analysis keen enough we would find that our lives impinge on the peripheries of other spheres than that of the earth, and that we are whirled around on them forever like Ixion on his wheel. Such a discovery would settle, to the satisfaction of all, the endless debate regarding predestination and free will. But it does not do to indulge in such metaphysical flights while clambering around in a tree forty feet from the ground. They might make us giddy, and then “What a fall would be there, my fellow-countrymen.” Still it was worth the climb to get away for a little while from the flatness of things and to realize that there is much in life that is missed by the sensible people who keep their feet constantly on the ground. We need an occasional breath from the heights, and I am inclined to think there was much wisdom in the words of the poetess who closed a notable poem in a recent number of The Forum with the couplet:

THE JENNETING APPLE

The unknown apple of excellent quality which I mentioned last week turns out to have a most satisfying history. An expert from the fruit branch of the Department of Agriculture told me that it is a Jenneting. Investigating in the encyclopedia, I found it was formerly known as the John-apple or Apple-John. Under this name it figures in Shakespeare. Falstaff exclaims: “I am withered like an old Apple-John.” A glance at the Jenneting confirms the belief that this is the very apple that Shakespeare had in mind. When thoroughly ripe the skin has a withered and slightly blotched appearance that justifies the comparison. The old tree was interesting enough from the fact that it was one of the first planted in this district, and must now rank among the oldest trees in the country, but finding that it figured in literature makes me regard it with a new affection. From now on I shall cherish it as Justice Shallow did the “pippin of his own grafting.” Even though it is not mentioned in the government report, Fruits of Ontario, or recognized among the standard apples of the market, I shall treat it with especial care. We may not be able to answer Browning’s question: “What porridge had John Keats?” But we can know the apple Shakespeare ate. Moreover, I noticed that many of the finest apples on the old tree were rotten at the heart, even before they were ripe. Undoubtedly it was the Jenneting Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote:

Everything points to the conclusion that this is Shakespeare’s apple, and it has a flavour that makes it entirely worthy of that honour.

CIDER TIME

There is one serious drawback to the occasional beautiful days we get during the late fall. They are altogether too delightful and languorous for anyone to work, but at the same time they are the only days we may have on which it will be possible to finish the season’s work, and we have to make the most of them. If it were not for the crowing of the roosters, we would hardly have the industry to keep going, but the roosters, especially the young ones with sharp, shrill voices, are a constant inspiration. When everything in nature is dreamy and warm and lazy they crow with a sudden vivacity that cheers a man on. Even without seeing them you know that they are scratching gravel with both feet—just as you should be doing. The crowing of the young roosters is the characteristic music of Indian summer. The insects and birds are still, and if it were not for Chanticleer we might fall asleep on our feet, but he sends a vibration of joy through the still air that rouses a man like a live wire. And then there is a fine neighbourly sound about the crowing of the roosters. It is purely a sound of civilization. You never hear it in the wilderness or far from human dwellings. When you hear it, it calls up all kinds of pleasant domestic associations, including fricasseed chicken and chicken pot pie. Any way you look at it—or listen to it—it is a most seasonable and satisfying sound.

Now that the heavier work is done we are having time for such dissipations as cider-making. But, instead of doing it in the old way by having a small coffee-grinder machine to reduce the apples to pulp and a little press with a capacity for about a pailful of apples at a time, we load our apples on a waggon and take them to a cider-mill to be ground in quantity. People go to these mills and wait their turns as they used to at the old grist mills. Whenever I drive to the post office I am sure to meet farmers going home with milk cans and barrels filled with cider and the waggon-box filled with sour-smelling pulp. Occasionally one of them offers a drink of new cider, and as they never have a cup or other vessel suited to the occasion the feat is usually performed by dipping up about half a gallon of cider in the lid of a milk can and passing around this unwieldy loving-cup. To drink from it successfully a man needs a very wide mouth or he will have a couple of rivulets of apple juice running down each side of his chin. But this amber fluid, perfected in the alembics of autumn, is worth getting in any way, even if a man has to push his head down into the barrel to get it. I am told that the best cider is made from apples that have been slightly frost-bitten on the trees, and I seem to remember that Thoreau has something to say about the superior flavour of frost-bitten apples. Anyway the apples should be thoroughly ripe to make the best quality. As yet cider-making is not an institution in this country as it is in the old countries, but one hears rumours of hard cider that is perfected on the quiet. Much of the cider that is being made in this district will be allowed to turn into vinegar and some will be used in making apple butter, but people who have cool cellars will be able to keep some of it sweet well into the winter.

AN IMPORTANT DECISION

Let no one make the mistake of thinking that the Privy Council or the Supreme Court have all the knotty problems to deal with. Every day the father of a family is obliged to run a Court of Appeals and render judgment on all kinds of complex cases. If the humble decisions rendered in this way could only be known, I have no doubt that the wisdom of Solomon would be equalled or even surpassed by many plain citizens who are harried by the cost of living. Unfortunately I have no notable decisions of my own to report at the moment—as my favourite trick is to let judgment go by default. I have found that if I can arrange a stay of proceedings for a few hours the whole trouble is forgotten in the rush of new interests. But sometimes a case calling for decision is continuous and worries me for weeks before I get it settled. For instance, ever since the Red Astrakan apples came in after harvest I have been assured with “petitionary vehemence” that that boy would make himself sick eating apples. He was never seen without an apple in an advanced stage of mastication. I’d see before the fall was over if I wouldn’t have to send for the doctor for that boy. It was all up to me. Other people washed their hands of the whole matter—and the boy continued his apple-eating. I watched the performance with uneasiness, but could not convince myself of the need for action. I had some memories that indicated boy capacity in regard to apples. I remembered times when a schoolboy’s blouse had the function of the cow’s rumen, or first stomach. It was simply a receptacle to hold food for further processes of digestion. A boy would go to school with his blouse in what veterinarians would describe as a state of impaction, and gradually during the day the apples would be furtively transferred to the second or inner stomach. Memory of such things—legally this would class as a precedent—kept me from rendering judgment on the point under debate. Moreover, I could not see that public policy demanded a smaller consumption of apples, especially when bushels and bushels of delicious varieties were going to waste. But yesterday a crisis developed. The boy was caught eating two apples at the same time. He had one in each hand and was feeding himself diligently. Right there I put down my foot, and other parents may find light and leading in my decision. I decided right on the spot that for a boy to eat two apples at once was coming it rather strong. As the law now stands a boy may eat apples continuously as long as he confines himself to one apple at a time, but when he tries to eat two apples at once he may expect an outburst of paternal displeasure. Dixi! Fiat!

“TASTE THIS”

If I were talking to you this morning instead of writing, my tones would be of the mincing, early Victorian, prunes and prisms variety. A few minutes ago I was asked to “Taste this,” and my mouth is now puckered up like the end of the button bag after the drawstring has been pulled. At the present time the wild plum jam is being made. This year the wild plums are tart and acrid beyond all whooping. It is probably due to the long, dry spell, but, whatever the cause, they have an astringent juice that would even pucker the lip of a stone jug. I think it even puckered the spoon in which the stuff was handed to me, but I will not insist on this. The spoon may have been dinted in some other way. Anyway, the plums are full of this kind of juice this year, and it must be got rid of before the work of preserving is proceeded with. The way to do it is to put on the plums with plenty of water and boil until they begin to break open. Then pour off the water and juice. Next put on the plums again with a smaller quantity of water, and boil until they are quite soft before adding the sugar—pound for pound. The result is a bland and pleasantly tart conserve that is beyond praise. But do not try to make jelly of that above-mentioned juice. It might be useful to kill weeds on the lawn, or you might add it to the pig ration, if the pigs are so warped by the dry weather that you want to shrink them up so that they will hold swill. In any case, be sure that you get it all out of the plums before preserving them. I had a taste of the finished preserves, and once more proclaim that they surpass any fruit that I know of. They have a tang of the wild that excels anything found in tame fruits of any kind, no matter how skilfully they have been burbanked.

OCTOBER FARM LANDS

Why are there no good quotations about October? We are having weather just now that makes one long for a burst of poetry that will surpass “What is so rare as a day in June?” as much as ripeness surpasses greenness. Poe has something about “the lonesome October” that gives one cold chills to remember. Is it because the only decent rhyme for October is “sober” that the poets have been unable to get enthusiastic? And what a peculiar touch of irony it is that “sober” is the only rhyme for the month of wine-pressing, cider-making, and “brown October ale.” But perhaps the trouble is that the poets cannot do the subject justice. At no other season of the year is the country so bewilderingly beautiful—so “beautiful exceedingly.” The frost has worked miracles with the foliage. The staid green of summer has given place to “a riot of colour” (good old phrase) ranging from the most delicate yellow to crimson and purple. After the frosty nights the air has an exhilarating quality not to be described in a country where prohibition sentiment is so strong. The October sunshine has a satisfying warmth that makes a man as mellow as a fall pippin. Someone has somewhere described this as “the season when every schoolboy trudges along the country roads munching a ripe apple.” That does very well for prose, but the subject is one that demands poetry. We should have something as meaty as the well-filled granaries and as luscious as the closely-packed apple barrels. Let our poets get busy. Some American magazine will be glad to pay a proper price for the gem when it is completed.

A drive through the country has charms at all times, but just now it is especially worthwhile. If scenery is your hobby the above-mentioned riot of colour may be seen from a thousand angles. Piles of apples, rosy, yellow, and green, give an appetizing beauty to every orchard—marred somewhat by commercial-looking apple barrels, indicating that these good things will be sold to be enjoyed elsewhere. It may be observed everywhere that

Potatoes are being dug and huge piles are in evidence ready to be pitted. This, by the way, is the season of the real Canadian harvest. The corn, potatoes, beans, and pumpkins are native products and were cultivated long before the coming of the white man. The Indian harvest was really gathered in Indian summer. The harvest over which we make so much is all of cereals introduced by the white man.

This is also the small boy’s harvest. The nutting season is on, although it is somewhat spoiled by “No Trespassing” signs that give such an unneighbourly look to some parts of the country. Walnuts and chestnuts are carefully protected as a rule, for they have a market value, but beech nuts and hickory nuts are free for all. One misses, however, those most industrious nut-gatherers, the red squirrels. They have practically disappeared from this part of the country. They understood the science of nut-gathering to the last detail, and the boy who kept a close watch on them usually reaped a rich, though piratical, harvest. When gathering hickory nuts, the red squirrel selected the best and put them through a proper course of treatment before carrying them to his nest in some hollow tree. The nuts were first buried under decaying leaves or old damp logs until the outer husks were loosened. These preliminary storehouses were the ones raided by the predatory small boys, for the squirrels usually managed to hide their winter homes so carefully that there was no finding them. It used to be said that the squirrels never climbed a home tree, but left and approached it through the branches so that no tell-tale tracks would be left on the snow. The boy who managed to plunder a number of busy squirrels usually got a winter store of the choicest nuts, but the urchin of today must do his own climbing, selecting, and hulling. Judging by observation, the shell-bark hickories have not changed in any way, but are just as exasperating to climb as ever. Moreover, they are just as tall as ever, and the choicest nuts grow out of range of the well-aimed sticks. The boy who does not want to get into trouble by having his clothes torn wisely waits until the nuts are brought down by his ancient enemy, Jack Frost.

The cider presses are now working overtime, and everybody who cares to can have a plentiful supply of apple butter, cider vinegar, and possibly a little—only a little, for the stomach’s sake—hard cider. Those who have encountered some of this home-made hard cider when it giveth its colour aright assure me that it stingeth like an adder and biteth like a serpent and has a headache in every mouthful. It is whispered that some people add a bushel of white wheat to every barrelful—which ought to make a fairly husky brew. But let us talk of apple butter. This is made by boiling down the cider to one-third the original quantity and adding enough sound apples to make a thick “sass.” It is a nippy preserve that is appetizing and satisfying. Some cider is boiled slightly and put away in sealers to be used for drinking purposes and to make Thanksgiving and Christmas mince pies. Cider-making, like almost everything else, has undergone a change. It is unusual to find a farmer with an old-fashioned hand press, as it was found that these did not extract all the cider. They now have cider mills, to which the farmers take their apples to be ground and pressed by powerful machinery. And even though the huge presses seem to squeeze the fruit as dry as a small dealer who has fallen into the hands of a trust, I am told that in some places the pulp is carefully preserved and shipped to wine manufacturers, who subject it to a further treatment, which enables them to make a champagne that, when properly labelled, will rank with the finest and most costly. Speaking of wines, if ancient tales tell true, this is the year for connoisseurs to lay in a supply. It is one of the superstitions of wine countries that wine made in a comet year surpasses all others in body and bouquet.

Country sales are now in progress and are being advertised on every convenient roadside tree. Bridges and gate posts are decorated with attractive bills and the voice of the auctioneer is heard in the land. It is said that owing to the scarcity and high price of feed many farmers are selling their young cattle, but the prices reported indicate that few bargains can be picked up. Good stock still commands high prices. The auctioneers of the present are business-like individuals, and those who attend sales do not come home with the good stories and choice bits of repartee that used to make a sale a sort of country entertainment. Sales are now attended chiefly by people who are looking for something to buy, and “business is business, b’gosh.”

The turkeys, that reverted as far as they could to the wild state during the summer, are now returning to the barns about the time the chickens are being fed, and are selecting for themselves the best roosting-places. They have grown plump on wild seeds and grasshoppers, and now they make daily excursions to the woods for beech nuts, which they swallow whole. As beech nuts are plentiful this year, nut-fed turkeys should be a feature on the Thanksgiving markets, though no one seems to have made a classification of this kind. Beech-nut bacon is sometimes advertised—a fact that causes wonder among the farmers, for in the old days when they dressed their hogs for market the buyers were expert in picking out hogs that had been allowed to eat nuts. These were promptly culled out and either had to be sold at a lower price or taken home. It was claimed that the flesh was soft and oily. But possibly beech-nut pork had qualities that were overlooked. Anyway, it sounds good.

OCTOBER SUN BATHS

In spite of all the spring songs and rare days in June, this is the time of the year that gives the ideal sun bath. When the eager and nipping north wind drives you to the shelter of the south side of the house, you find the sunlight as mellow as a fall pippin. You can spread yourself out and take all of it without care for actinic rays or ultra-violet rays or any other kind. The otherwise objectionable flies will make a pleasant droning music for you, while the bumble bees on the zinnia blossoms will contribute the bass notes. Occasionally a hummingbird will dart into your cosy corner to get a taste of nectar from the late flowers, and silky thistle-downs will float between you and the sun. Crows will call pleasantly in the distant woodlot, and the bluejays in the orchard will pierce the air with occasional cries of sharp joyousness. A little while ago I hunted up the pears that I hid in the long grass about ten days ago, and they were perfect. I carried a couple to the sunny side of the house and ate them in a lazy, unhurried fashion, while the sunshine poured over me and warmed me deliciously. The kittens came and played around and sported among the currant bushes, and made me feel so much at peace with the world that I could find it in my heart to speak kindly, or at least playfully, to a Big Interest. And all the time the broilers were sending forth their amateurish cock-a-doodle-doos and arousing thoughts of future feasting. There is no doubt of it—when an autumn day is perfect it is the most perfect day of all the year.

AN OCTOBER WALK

After much coaxing I consented to go for a walk. My own choice was to lie in the sunshine with a book, but in an indiscreet moment I had told the nature student where late butterflies could be found, and the little people would not be denied. So, with the four-year-old acting as pace-maker, we started for a ramble in the fields and woods. It was the most perfect day of the fall and everything was in keeping. There was a bag of hickory nuts by the kitchen door and five bags of walnuts by the gate. There was a cornfield near by with khaki-coloured shocks and big yellow pumpkins. The sun was shining through a smoky haze and giving everything a dreamy and lazy look. But in spite of the haze there seemed to be more light in the world than at any other time of the year, for the brown fields and yellow leaves seemed to reflect it back to us. And it was a warm, golden, mellow light that charmed the air to a wonderful stillness. It glimmered on the ripe apples in the orchard and revealed inviting spots everywhere that one could lie down in and dream in and be content. It glittered on trailing spider-webs on which I have been assured that little spiders travel through the air and on the silver-white balloons of the milkweed that went drifting over. There were a few sparrows chattering among the corn shocks and one crow cawing in the woods. Once in a while we heard a bluejay squawk in the woods, and a solitary hawk circled in the sky for a little while and then “stretched its wings to the south.” Because four-year-old legs are short, our pace-maker had to be lifted across ditches and carried occasionally, so that our progress was such as befitted a dreamy day. No one was in a hurry, but still there was always a straggler calling, “Wait for me!”

In the pasture field the young cattle came racing up to us, looking for salt, and the driver came nosing for an apple. Unfortunately we were not provided and had to disappoint them. There were yellow cabbage moths fluttering everywhere, despised of the nature student, but he occasionally did wild work with his butterfly net when chasing tiger butterflies. A few feeble grasshoppers made short jumps to get out of our way, and once I heard a lonely cricket rasping out his stridulous song. There was excitement when the first mushroom was found—their season is about over—and there was an immediate scattering to find more. Handkerchiefs were knotted to make bags, and all likely corners were investigated, while the pace-maker and I moved steadily toward the golden woods. Presently we were trampling the crisp leaves and watching the flecks of colour that floated down through the still air. Even the woods were soaked with the warm sunshine, and every log that we came to offered a seat that we could not help stopping to enjoy. What was the use of being in a hurry when we were not going anywhere in particular and even great nature herself seemed to be loafing? We were disappointed in not seeing any squirrels or birds, but perhaps that made us feel that everything belonged to us and that the woods had put their bravery on for us alone. There were many informal councils which resulted in wandering expeditions to especially bright trees and shrubs. And everywhere we found the warm, dreamy, flooding sunshine.

There was no excitement to be found in the first woodlot we visited, so we decided to move farther afield. Someone had heard that there were big puffballs beside a government drain in a field by the railroad. We decided to investigate, and if we found fresh ones to sample them. We already had a mess of mushrooms and had no need to hunt for something else, but puffballs would be a novelty, and we would at least be able to say that we had tried them. At last we had a definite object in view, but that did not hurry us much. On coming out of the woods we found that the haze had lifted, and the sunlight seemed higher and warmer. Coats were taken off and carried on shoulders or dragged by one sleeve while we swept that field in open formation, looking for those puffballs. It was reported that the man who had seen them had said they were so large he had mistaken them for sheep. But evidently, like sheep, they had gone astray. We couldn’t find a trace of them. They were probably picked by some predatory mycologist, of whom there are many in the country just now.

Being disappointed in our hunt, we crossed the government drain, in which water is once more flowing, after months during which it was dry as summer dust. Our pace-maker marched sturdily ahead of us into a woodlot where we were especially interested to find a few blue-beech trees. This enabled me to give an improving lecture on blue-beech tea, which used to be very popular with the teachers of a past generation. It was brewed by making a blue-beech gad about a yard long and as thick as a man’s finger and applying it vigorously to the writhing person of an unruly boy. It was generally supposed to be an excellent moral and mental tonic, and the boys to whom it was administered in liberal doses afterwards became shining lights in the ministry or in politics. To be able to handle a blue-beech gad successfully in a country school during the winter months, when boys and girls of eighteen or twenty attended, was one of the chief qualifications of those old-time teachers. But we live in gentler times, and blue-beech tea is now but a memory of sterner days. I also remember that blue-beech clubs were to old-time bullies what a sprig o’ shillelagh was to an Irishman. The popular recipe for a fighting cudgel was to get a straight blue-beech about an inch and a half thick and cut a piece about two feet long. After the ends were properly trimmed and rounded it was buried in a manure pile that was heating and left for some months. This was supposed to add to its weight and toughness, though why either should be added to is something of a mystery, for in its natural state a blue-beech cudgel is about as heavy and tough as a rod of iron. I remember getting a blue-beech and burying it, but I have no recollection of digging it up. Probably I forgot all about it, or the fighting mood left me. Anyway, I never got into trouble for using it. In fact I don’t think I ever heard of one being used, and I suppose they never had any existence, except in the fervid imaginations of that period of youth when the human child arms himself with a discarded gun-barrel and goes out back of the barn to fight Indians.

The lecture on blue-beech, delivered from a sunlit spot of a mossy log, got me so thoroughly rested that I hated to get up, but the pace-maker was off in the woods somewhere, and I had to follow. We found a rotting root that was covered with dry puffballs that smoked when squeezed and when tramped on puffed up a greenish-black cloud that hung in the air for some minutes. After this we found a thorn tree, and the ground under it was red with haws. These we tried to eat, but it was hard to find one that was not wormy. I shouldn’t be surprised if these berries serve as breeding places for some of our injurious insects, though I have not seen them mentioned in any of the bulletins of the Agricultural Department. And while I think of it, I have seen nothing about the destructive mushroom worms. They either exist in the ground waiting for the mushrooms or they develop in a few hours. I have found fresh pink mushrooms that could not have been more than a day old that were filled with worms. But the day was too lazy and dreamy for a serious investigation of this kind, so I contented myself with wondering idly about them. The haws, which were not very palatable, reminded us that dinner must be about ready, and the pace-maker was headed for home. He led us out of the woods into the big sunlight of the fields, where little puffs of wind came now from one direction, now from another and purred across our ears. We passed through clouds of little flies that were drifting about aimlessly like milkweed-downs and spider-webs. By this time the sunshine was positively hot, and that made us lazier than ever. Somehow we reached the road and crawled along to the orchard, where we found a few ripe fall pippins that had been missed by the pickers. These we knocked down with a pole, and while munching them dawdled along to the house, where we found that dinner had been ready for an hour and everything was cold and—and—and, but you know yourself what was said to us. After dinner I got the book and a sunny place to lie and read, and life was very good.

AUTUMN BEAUTY

The days of beauty have come again. Already the maples have been touched with colour, ranging from light yellow to crimson. But they have been only touched. The great mass of foliage is still green and serves as an admirable setting for the vivid touches that announce the approach of autumn. The rains have revived the pasture fields to their natural colour and the stalky wigwams of the cornfields show the lingering richness of harvest. The pumpkins give little dabs of orange, but the long drought was cruel to them, and we miss their usual profusion and splendour among the corn shocks. The ivy on the houses reveals every shade of red known to nature’s palette. In the orchard the apples are unusually brilliant. The Kings, McIntosh Reds and Ben Davises are enough to make the mouths of passing automobilists water, but the more knowing will find a greater appeal in the light gold of the fall pippins. There are asters, zinnias and gladioli in the garden that have made a wonderful recovery since the drought passed. They rival the goldenrod in neglected corners of the fields, and the display of colour has just begun. If the weather continues favourable we should have an autumn to remember. In this description it would never do to forget the milky-white splotches of the mushrooms in the pasture field, even though white is an absence of colour. If the theory that mushrooms come before rain is true, we should have rain within a few hours, for today’s gathering of mushrooms was unusually fresh and fine. And I must not forget the rich brown of the wheat fields, where the drill is at work while I write. All the colours that nature is lavishing for our delight show differently in the warm sunlight at different hours of the day. The sun sets red and the moon rises golden before the last rays of the sun have disappeared. Altogether, everything is so beautiful that one feels like adding a human roar to the shrill music of the crickets.

Although there is no question about the delight of spending a perfect October day afoot in the fields and woods, it must be admitted that other forms of travel have their merits. Travel in buggies would be delightful if the automobiles were not so plentiful, and travel in automobiles might be praised if they were not so speedy. My experience has been with the quiet glide of a varnished parlour-car, and a day of travel in this way has filled my memory with a whole gallery of pictures. The amount of beauty spread on the landscape between Ottawa and Toronto would be bewildering, if it were not so soothing and restful. Hillsides covered with flaming red of sumach—marshes of dark green cedar—the yellow of birches and poplars and the scarlet of maples whirl past the wide windows in a never-ending panorama. The blue of the sky and the occasional blue of water give further variety to the passing picture, and occasional long, swinging flocks of blackbirds give a decorative touch that adds a further charm. Here and there an apple orchard shows the colour of fruit and heaped barrels, and over all is the glorious October sunlight. No poet needs to think that he is being original and emphatic when he says that the world is still as beautiful as in the dawn of time. It is more beautiful, for we have had to learn how to enjoy beauty, just as we have had to learn how to develop and enjoy all the other good things of life. The world is more beautiful today than it was to those who viewed it from a “Cro-Magnon squatting place,” for we have learned how to see and enjoy beauty. And a beautiful day in October is the best of all.

*I think I have written enough about the beauty of autumn foliage, but this morning I saw one little touch so marvellous that it is worth special mention. I happened to be up and about just as the sun was rising. There were wisps and occasional banks of fog scattered over the fields and against the woods. When the sun rose with his full glory of light I happened to look towards the west. Between me and the multi-coloured foliage of the woodlot there was a dense bank of fog, which suddenly became luminous with the light of the sun and the colour of the autumn leaves. It was more beautiful than any sunset I have seen. The fog and the heavy dew both seemed to freshen and intensify the effects of the light and the foliage. The scene lasted only a few minutes, but it marked the supreme point of my enjoyment of the autumn.

*From Peter McArthur’s last published article before the operation which preceded his death.

MITTS

I suppose different people have different ways of recognizing the approach of winter, and an interesting article might be compiled on the subject. Putting in the young cattle is a sure and somewhat exciting sign, but, come to think it over, what convinces me finally of the advent of winter is the necessity of wearing mitts. Mitts are a detachable part of our raiment, and as soon as I have to begin wearing them my troubles commence. I think, if anyone were to take the trouble to hunt, mitts in various stages of decomposition could be picked up all over the farm, and on the roads leading from it to the villages. Mitts are absolutely necessary in cold weather, but something is always turning up to make one pull them off for a minute and then he goes away and forgets them. When the snow came last week I went to a box containing all kinds of odds and ends and made an earnest search for mitts. The best I could discover was two mitts of different pairs, both for the left hand. They proved such a nuisance that I have made up my mind to lose complete pairs this winter instead of odd mitts. When you lose an odd mitt it is of no use to the finder, and the one you are carrying around with you is of no real use to you. I daresay I should have my mitts fastened together with a string that would go around my neck, the same as the children have them, but I hardly think that would look right for a grown man. The next best solution I have found is to buy half a dozen pairs of the cheapest kind of canvas mitts, and have them scattered promiscuously around the place. By having them in the pockets of my overalls and coats, and in the cow stable, and under the kitchen stove, I stand a chance of being able to lay my hands on a pair sometimes when I need them. But there are some jobs that can’t be done while wearing mitts, such as cleaning the seeds out of pumpkins. In my hurry I usually drop the mitts on the ground, and then a cow comes along and steps on them, and buries them for the rest of the winter. Almost every fall I start off by buying a fancy pair of mitts with water-proof fronts but I never know who is wearing them by spring.

It is years since I have seen a pair of the real, old-fashioned home-knitted mitts of my boyhood days. These mitts were usually about half an inch thick, and when they once got soaked they seldom dried out during the winter. We used to face them with leather, and that made them hold the water longer. I have a very distinct recollection of the misery of pulling on wet mitts when going to work, and I am inclined to think that my present method of having many pairs of cheap cloth mitts is an improvement. They do not cost much to buy, and I understand that many careful housewives now make a winter supply from any old cloth that may be about the place. They cut them to a pattern, and stitch them up on the sewing machine. If I were working outdoors all the time I would just keep one woman busy making mitts for me to use and lose.

THE WOOD-PILE

Now that all kinds of farm work are at a standstill except the chores, the wood-pile takes the centre of the stage. But that is hardly exact. It is the need of a wood-pile that becomes important. Do my best, I can’t get a permanent wood-pile. I have been trying for five years to get a wood-pile that could be pointed to with pride, but thus far without success. At one time I got up the energy to get enough timber together to give a day’s work to a buzz-saw and a gang of men, and for almost a year there was a respectable wood-pile in a woodlot three-quarters of a mile away. But we never had anything but dribs and drabs of wood at the house. Whenever we ran short I would haul home a jag, but, though I made many plans, I never found time to fetch home the whole lot and make a respectable pile. And in time that source of supply gave out, and I was back to the job of hauling home poles and chopping them—or hiring someone else to chop them. I can get hay stacked ahead, and corn stalks and grain in the granary, but the wood seems to beat me. The ravenous, insatiable, all-consuming kitchen stove eats up my wood as fast as I can provide it. It never seems to be satisfied. It is as tireless as the interest on a mortgage. It uses wood at all seasons and at all hours of the day and night. I have made several brave attempts to get a pile of wood ahead, but the result could always be described by parodying Omar:

As might be expected, Shakespeare did not overlook the dramatic possibilities of a wood-pile. Catch him missing anything so humanly important as that! You will remember that in The Tempest the harsh parent of the bride set the shipwrecked lover at work on the wood-pile—presumably to pay for his meals while he was about the cave. Andrew Lang, in one of his essays, comments on the cold island on which this great play was located, and based his argument on the amount of wood that had to be carried by the afflicted characters. But I do not think his argument is sound. There are passages in the play in which the balminess of the island is extolled. In my opinion Shakespeare introduced the wood-pile incidents because he knew their exasperating nature. Mrs. Shakespeare had no doubt called his attention to the emptiness of the wood-box and the need of fetching an armful until his great soul had rebelled. Anyway, he knew all about wood-piles and the anguish of spirit they can cause. With what feeling have I quoted the words of the unhappy Ferdinand:

There is more that might be appropriate, but it is so mixed up with sentimental gush that I do not care to quote more than I have. But Ferdinand’s case had compensations that mine lacks. Miranda never comes around to me and says with a languishing accent:

That was all very charming for Ferdinand, but when I am at the wood-pile wrestling with a knot that makes me wonder whether I should use an old-fashioned maul and wedge, blasting powder, or bad language to tear it apart, I am much more likely to hear a voice inquiring: “Aren’t you ever coming with that armful of wood?”

Like another character in Shakespeare, “I am inland bred, and love a great fire.” One of the delights that lured me back to the land was the prospect of having old-fashioned wood fires. I was raised before an open fireplace, and most of my childhood dreams were dreamed while gazing at the dancing flames on the dying coals. But when I got back to the country the fireplaces were gone, and the wood mostly gone, and the big, strong men who used to chop wood for a dollar a day were all gone. Instead of the romantic open fireplace I found the prosaic kitchen stove, which has all the appetite of the fireplace without its charm. And I had to hunt up wood myself and haul it myself and chop it myself. I am afraid that the open fireplace of my youthful reveries can never be revived. Moreover, there is a movement on foot for the conservation of what remains of our forests. Those wood fires of pioneer days were really part of the scheme of clearing the land, and the more wood they consumed the better pleased people were. But now we have a different point of view. Instead of clearing land we are beginning the work of reforestation. Now that I have had considerable experience with a wood-pile, I am for conservation. I feel that it is a sin and a shame to destroy the noble forest trees for such base utilitarian purposes as feeding a thankless kitchen stove. I think I shall use coal in future. Coal may be mussy, but you don’t have to split it, and it goes farther.

But in spite of all this grumbling we are more likely to have a real wood-pile this year than at any time in the past five years. The big winds of a year ago and of last spring blew down some of the biggest maples in the woodlot. As an examination showed these trees were too shaky and dozy to be worth making into lumber I decided to cut them into stovewood. While fired by this great purpose I bought a new axe handle, a departmental store crosscut saw, a saw set, file, whetstone and everything necessary to keep the tools in good shape. For one disillusioning day I worked on the end of that crosscut saw. Then I went back to poles and tops and the bucksaw. This fall, however, I managed to let the job of cutting those big trees into eighteen-inch wood. Already the piles are growing beautifully, and there should be at least thirty cords of it. I have highly resolved that when the first sleighing comes I shall “snake” it up to the house, and then we shall have the wood-pile of our dreams. Of course, it will still have to be split fine, but not too fine. I have noticed that small wood gives the kitchen stove an undue advantage, and it gulps down the sticks whole without stopping to chew on them. But oh, but oh, I am hoping for a day when the children grow up, when I can proclaim my freedom and, like Caliban, refuse to

A FROZEN FAIRYLAND

As if not satisfied with giving us perfect winter weather, nature started in yesterday afternoon to show what she can do, when in the mood, to make the world bewilderingly beautiful. Early in the afternoon, wisps of fog began to float across the field and the raw cold proved the truth of the old doggerel:

As the fog floated past, a fine hoar-frost began to settle everywhere and the sun went down red as in Indian summer. The straggling fog-banks on the horizon began to glow, and we saw

Then came an hour of darkness, and when the full moon rose it lighted a fairyland. Every twig, weed, and exposed blade of grass was frosted to three times its usual thickness with feathery hoar-frost of dazzling whiteness. Only the trunks and larger limbs of the trees remained black. As the stars were blotted out by the light, all except the larger ones and a planet that hung in the west like a drop of liquid silver, the snow began to light up with infinite constellations. There was moonlight and snow “fur’s you cud look or listen.” Not a breath of air disturbed the tense stillness. Presently an owl—who, no doubt, “for all his feathers, was a-cold”—hooted in the ghostly woods and the sound boomed and echoed weirdly. “Whoo-hoo-hoo-whoo-hoo!”

It seemed the only sound that would be appropriate in that frozen stillness. As the moon rose higher a perfect storm circle that almost broke into rainbow colours formed around it. All night the spectacle lasted, but the wind that came with the dawn scattered the light frost flakes and mingled them with the drifting snow. But all who loved beauty had a chance to see the matchless artistry of

It is worthwhile to take a trip along the sideroads where they still have rail fences to see the snowdrifts. The briars and withered goldenrod stalks form shelters where the drifts can form and be carved into wonderful shapes by the driving wind. Along the main roads where wire fences are in use the drifts do not have a chance, but on the side-lines they can gather and lie undisturbed, save for the tracking of the wild creatures that now more than at any other season “do seek their meat from God.” Sprawling rabbit tracks abound everywhere, and here and there the loosely-woven lacework of quail tracks may be seen. Where the briars and weeds are thick they bend down under the weight of the drifts, but hold them up sufficiently to provide hiding places for the rabbits and quail, and shelter them from the cold. Occasionally one sees the jumping track of a weasel or mink that finds in the drifts an ideal hunting ground. Everywhere flocks of snow birds swoop down among the weeds to feed, and add their tiny tracks to the strangely-written history of the winter struggle for existence.

OPENING THE APPLE-PIT

We are a hopelessly unromantic people. We go about even the most delightful of our affairs in a sadly humdrum way. Take the opening of an apple-pit in winter, for instance. If the “well-greaved Greeks” had anything like this in their lives they would have approached the task with appropriate songs and ceremonial dances. They would have done justice to the winter-ripened apple,

Now notice how prosaically the Canadian farmer undertakes the work. After the women-folk have been nagging him for a couple of weeks he begins to feel apple-hungry himself, and some fine morning he takes the long-handled shovel and an old axe and proceeds to open the pit. The snow is first carefully shovelled away from the little treasure-house of autumn fruitfulness and then the covering of frozen earth is chopped away. This uncovers the protecting layer of straw, which is removed, laying bare the apples. What a gush of perfume burdens the frosty air! Spies, Baldwins, Russets, and pippins give their savour aright, and if a man had a touch of poetry in his soul he would begin at once to fashion lyrics. But there is no poetry. He simply remarks to himself that they have kept well, fills a bag, stuffs back the straw and piles on the earth and snow to keep out the frost. He then carries the bag to the kitchen and announces that he expects to have “apple-sass” for dinner. Possibly he wipes an apple on his sleeve and eats it while going to the barn to finish his chores, but on the whole he treats the event as if it were an ordinary part of the day’s work.

Although our Canadian apples are good at all times, they are now at their best. There is a flavour to a winter-ripened apple that surpasses praise. It has a fullness and tang that provoke the appetite more than it satisfies. A winter evening spent around a roaring fire, with a plateful of well-polished apples within reach, and old friends to talk with, is something to cheer even the soul of a pessimist. As for the children, their delight is twofold when the apple-pit has been opened. Not only do they gorge themselves, but they dream of the affluence they will enjoy by bartering apples at school. The school price of apples varies, but yesterday a sound, rosy Spy was disposed of for two empty rifle cartridges (thirty-two long), the stub of a lead pencil, and a copper harness rivet without a washer. From this you can figure out how much boy bric-à-brac a bushel would buy.

Art is the only enduring expression of science.

THE HUNGRY KITCHEN STOVE

Of all the creatures reared in captivity a kitchen stove is about the hungriest. For the past couple of months I have been providing food for one in the shape of oak, maple, and elm tops, and I have come to regard it as an insatiable monster. I seem to be working with the axe and the bucksaw all the time. At least I have to work with them every time I feel I should be doing something else. Whenever I get comfortably settled with a book or start the typewriter clicking merrily the cry arises, “The wood-box is empty.” I know I should have a fine large wood-pile of dry and properly seasoned wood, but it is not my fault that I haven’t got it. Last winter we bought the timber that was left on the strip of land after the lumbermen got through with it. All the neighbours did the same, and we all piled this waste timber so as to be ready for the bucksaw. I was looking forward to getting enough wood ahead for a couple of years, but this winter no one seems to have anything to do so all the others decided to put in their spare time cutting up their wood without the bucksaw. So here I am left out in the cold. It has been a case of saying nothing and sawing wood or going without meals. The heater is a properly domesticated creature that is satisfied with an occasional scuttle of coal, but that cook stove seems to sit up nights to devour fuel. And then it is so finickety in its taste. I have to provide bundles of fine-split kindling to tempt its appetite, but when it once gets started it simply eats wood. Sometimes I get desperate and make a rush at cutting and splitting. With much puffing and growling I set a little pile ahead and settle down to have a nice quiet time, but I hardly get started at a good book before the cry goes up again, “The wood-box is empty.” My contest with that stove is a lot like the historic race between the hare and the tortoise. I make rushes and get ahead but it slowly but surely overtakes me. I have been told that using a bucksaw is excellent for the liver, but I feel bilious every time I think of it. I remember that an eminent educationist of my acquaintance used to saw wood with a bucksaw on his doctor’s advice and every morning he took a medicinal dose of it. His doctor must have been an allopath to have described such drastic remedies. To my way of thinking the cure was worse than the ailment. But I must stop grumbling, for matters are on the mend. Just as I was thinking of taking to my bed to get rid of the chore of bucking wood a man came to the door looking for work. I welcomed him so warmly that he kept looking at me suspiciously all the time he was eating dinner. But while I am writing this I can hear the snarl of the bucksaw varied by the occasional brisk tapping of the axe, and I own freely that I never heard music that sounded sweeter to me. If Strauss ever heard a bucksaw at work and considered it from my point of view he would compose a grand opera about it. I know that sawing wood looks almost as heroic as painted by Horatio Walker, but my feelings when doing the work are entirely tragic. But sh-h-h!!! Just listen to that bucksaw in the hands of an able-bodied man. I wonder if I can keep him till the pile is finished.

BELOW ZERO

I hate to think what this dip below zero is doing to people in the cities, but living in the country I confess to a touch of exhilaration. It so happened that on the first day of the cold snap I had to be up and about and walking along the sideroad before daylight. This does not mean that I was up so very early, for daylight does not come until seven o’clock. Snow was falling lazily and the world was wonderfully still. Presently an owl began to whoop in a neighbouring woodlot and added the last touch of desolation. As the road was covered with light snow that made everything slippery, the walking proved to be vigorous exercise that started the blood circulating and tingling to my finger-tips. There was something to rouse a man’s egotism in being superior to the night and the cold and the storm. In the warm seasons we may get into accord with nature and enjoy the bounties by which we are surrounded, but if we are to survive in the winter we must be superior to nature. We must be warmly clothed by our own efforts and provided with food, fuel, and shelter that are due to our own foresight, as much as to the bounty of nature. There is no season of the year when a comfortable man has so much right to feel proud of himself as in the winter. I have seen it argued that it was the alternation of heat and cold that developed in man the qualities that made civilization possible. When he makes proper provision for the winter he “gets a good conceit of himself” and proceeds to further achievements. While these reflections were passing through my head the dawn grew brighter in the east. As the sun came up I was surprised to see the light clouds from which the snow was falling. They were little more than a tattered veil, through which the sun shone from time to time in full splendour. In the moments of sunshine the light flashed back from the myriad facets of the newly fallen flakes and the day was bejewelled and resplendent. Even though every breath turned to a white puff in the frosty air I found my morning walk as enjoyable as any I had taken when the morning zephyrs were laden with the perfume of wild flowers.

THE COLD SPELL

What is the coldest quotation of poetry in the language? To pass the time on one of the coldest, blustriest afternoons of the winter, I searched my memory for chilly passages that would be in tune with the weather. The children agreed that it must have been fairly cold on the reef of Norman’s woe at the time of the wreck of the Hesperus, but Milton’s “The air burned frore” whistled over their heads. It was the same with Shelley’s

I know there are some very cold passages in Service’s poems but my memory does not retain the later poets as it does the grand old masters whose distant footsteps echo down the corridors of time. Still, there is one modern poet who struck the zero of Absolute temperature in an unforgettable way. Listen to this from Francis Thompson:

That is evidently cold, but it lacks human sympathy. It is an intellectual frost. In my search I tried many poets without raising goose-flesh on anyone, but at last I was able to spout one line that made them wiggle around in their clothes and act as if their teeth were going to chatter. It is from Keats’ “Eve of St. Agnes,” and we all agreed that it got closer to us than anything else. Here it is:

Br-r-r. Where is that draft coming from? Shut that door! Shake down the fire! That line certainly gives one a chill, although there isn’t a word about cold in it. After discovering our cold line we stopped and meditated on the fact that poets are not much given to describing cold scenes. They are mostly as fond of warm corners as a kitten, and they like to wear the shadowed livery of the burnished sun, to whom they are neighbours and near bred. Very few of them court the muse as far north as Service did.

A WINTER NIGHT

One night when it was too beautiful for one to be indoors there was a walk across the still fields to visit a neighbour. The full moon was swinging up in the east, and there were more stars sparkling underfoot than overhead. The snow was so light that it was kicked aside at every step without being felt. The light wind that was stirring from the west was so cold that it made the nostrils sting and frost gathered even on our eyelashes. Though the fields were white and the moon was shining, the shadows under the trees and behind every tuft of grass or weed were dead black. Sleigh-bells could be heard in the distance, and every now and then a gust of laughter and young voices singing would be wafted to our ears. An owl was hooting dismally in the woods, and the sound echoed away until it was lost in the distance. After a brisk walk we were soon warming ourselves beside a roaring wood fire, and the talk began about pioneer days. “A sad tale’s best for winter,” and there is always sadness in the stories of the old days. As I listened, the impression that grew on me was of heart-breaking isolation and homesickness, and the stifling, imprisoning wilderness. Though the pioneers hewed out homes for themselves, Canada was never their home. Their true homes were in the lands from which they came and to which they never returned. To us who were born to inherit what they won Canada is a true home, and it is hard for us to realize what they felt in the long years it took to transform the wilderness to one of the garden spots of the world. The struggles and weariness and heartache of the pioneers are to me a tale of never-ending interest. They toiled and walked apart from the world, fretted over the past and hoped for the future, but—

While the talk progressed there were apples and winter pears to eat, and then came the walk home through the frosty moonlight, with the snow crunching faintly underfoot. On the road we met others who had been lured away to neighbourly visits by the beauty of the night, and it was good to feel that, instead of killing sociability, the winter weather had really aroused it to more activity. Winter weather and winter pleasures at their best are very good.

WOOD-CUTTING

Last night the conversation turned on summer wood and the need of providing a supply.

“Good!” exclaimed the deponent, bubbling over with fool enthusiasm. “I need exercise, and a session at the end of a crosscut saw would do me a world of good.”

As a matter of fact, winter life in the country does get monotonous when one has nothing to do but drive to school with the children, go to the post office for the mail, read papers, crack nuts, and eat apples. The prospect of varying matters by a few days’ work in the woods was positively alluring.

This morning conditions were ideal for outdoor work. The sun was shining, and a faint north wind was breathing over the snow. Bluejays were squawking in the orchard and crows cawing in the woods. The “eager and nipping air” seemed to put steam in every living thing that was about, and to go crunching through the drifts with an axe over one’s shoulder seemed large and primitive and manly. In the woods flakes of snow were sifting down from the branches and faintly pungent woodland odours gave an exhilarating touch to the air.

A beech that had been felled for some purpose, but found unsatisfactory, was first attacked. It was held clear of the snow by a log on which it rested and by its branches. As the saw bit into it with a metallic “tang, tang,” the prospects for a pleasant and profitable day were excellent. Yanking a saw across a sound piece of timber seemed more like fun than anything else, and as exercise it was not unlike rowing.

The first cut was all right and as the block fell into the snow the achievement was celebrated with a deep-lunged “Whee-ee!” of satisfaction. When the second block fell the overcoat was felt to be an encumbrance and was removed.

“Tang, tang!” whimpered the saw through the hard wood. Two cuts more were completed and then the ordinary coat was felt to be rather heavy and was accordingly thrown off.

“Tang, tang!” The sound was getting monotonous and breathing was becoming noticeably difficult. What of that? Professor James of Harvard has written an authoritative essay “Second Wind” in which he shows that if one keeps at it he will soon get his “second wind,” and will be in a better condition for work than when he started. Nature has provided us with wonderful reserves of strength if we will but persist until they are reached. I was certainly in need of a second wind, for the first was almost gone. I was distinctly puffing. Another cut and I was gasping. Sweat was dripping from my eyebrows and the tip of my nose, and I was in the condition one reaches in the hot room of the Turkish bath, when the rubber comes in and remarks: “You are in a fine sweat. Better come and have a rubdown.” But there was no rubdown. That wretched saw was pulled away from me as often as I pulled it across, and there was no music in its “tang, tan-n-ng!” Just as I was coming to the conclusion that the world was full of sawdust and that I hadn’t a friend on earth, the tree was all cut into blocks.

“Now we will go at that maple stub.”

I grunted assent. The enthusiasm was all gone.

As we tramped towards the maple, tracks were noticed that started us guessing. They looked like two footprints close together a couple of feet apart. Was it a mink or a weasel? It seemed too big for a weasel. A light snow had fallen on the previous night and the fresh tracks were easy to follow. They were much more interesting than that maple stub and I insisted on following them. We might get a mink. I have known men to draw to a mink and catch a fur-lined overcoat, so why shouldn’t I? About fifty yards further on the tracks disappeared in a hole in a snowdrift beside a log. We were certainly in luck. By using the axe and kicking vigorously the snow was soon removed and a snug nest of leaves and mouse fur was found in a hollow under the log. It was still warm, showing that the occupant was at home. A few pokes with the axe handle brought out a more than snow-white ermine with a black-tipped tail. For about five seconds I was as active as a political K.C. hustling for a vacant judgeship. There was enough ermine in sight to make a beginning on a judge’s robe, but only for a few seconds. He disappeared into a hole that led under the stump of an uprooted tree and I was looking at the place as disconsolately as a political K.C. reading the notice of a rival’s appointment. A brief investigation showed that he was safe from pursuit. There was nothing to do but go at that miserable maple stub.

The maple stub measured two feet at the stump and was as sound as a bone. The top had been broken off by a windstorm a year ago and ever since it had been seasoning. After a notch had been cut on the side towards which the tree was to be made to fall we proceeded with our Gladstonian task. Working a crosscut saw in its natural position is bad enough, but working it on its side to cut through a standing tree—Oh, well, everything has to end some time. Presently it came crashing down.

As the echoes died away another sound was heard. It was the call to dinner. Say, have you ever heard the call to dinner in circumstances such as have been described? It is the most joyous sound in the world. If the women-folk only knew how good their voices sound at such times, they would call oftener—and earlier.

During the dinner hour the ermine—everybody else called it a weasel, but I had the Century Dictionary to back me—was discussed and the fiat went forth that he must be trapped. Where hens are kept weasels and similar vermin are not popular. There was a vivid recollection of twenty-six chickens that had been killed by a weasel one night last summer, so this one must be destroyed. No objection was made, for setting a trap is easier work that dragging a crosscut saw through a maple log. Nevertheless I scorned the preparations that were made. The dictionary describes the weasel as being remarkable for cunning, wariness, and alertness. It quotes the proverb about “catching a weasel asleep” and gives the impression that this creature, above all others, is capable, as the nature-fakirs say, of matching the intelligence of man with his cunning. The preparations for trapping were such as would be laughed at by a young rat, not to mention an old one. A dead hen that had been in cold storage in a snowdrift for a couple of months was dug out and laid beside a stump near the creature’s hole. Around the hen a little hut of rotten wood was built, leaving an opening at the bottom. In this an ordinary rat trap was placed without any attempt at concealment. The whole arrangement was one that a cow would avoid even if it was baited with turnips. It was absurd to think that a weasel would be so foolish as to walk into a danger so gross and palpable.

A time always comes when excuses and shifts fail, and at last there was nothing for it but to tackle the crosscut saw again. My hinges all felt rusty, and how sore those blisters felt! The first cut warmed me up and I felt better, but the second cut brought back the symptoms of asthma and apoplexy. Then I thought of a story.

“Talking about weasels, did I ever tell you about the Presbyterian elder living less than twenty miles from here who broke the Sabbath to kill one? He is the strictest Sabbatarian in the county and keeps the Sabbath in a way that makes the blue laws of New England look frivolous. He has all of the Sabbath food, fuel, and water prepared on Saturday, goes to church three times, and will allow no visitors. Well, one Friday night last summer a weasel got into his hen house and killed all his hens but three. On Saturday night he came back and finished the three. On the Sabbath morning the elder saw the vermin skulking about the barn, and throwing his record to the winds he took out his shotgun and peppered the weasel.” (This story was good for a five-minute rest.)

Another cut. “Tang, tan-n-nng.” You will notice how slow and long-drawn the sound was becoming when I drew back the saw.

When the cut was finished I just had enough breath left to start a discussion of the comet that is now appearing in the west. The papers have not told definitely whether it is Halley’s comet or another visitor. But even that ended.

After the next cut I managed to work up a talk about the plans of the Hydro-electric and to paint in glowing colours the good times we would have when electricity would be used to heat houses and for cooking. It wouldn’t be necessary to cut wood then. Whew!

While the next cut was coming off a blister broke and I couldn’t think of anything to talk about, so we plunged recklessly into another. Then I began to count the strokes. I found it took five hundred to take off one block. That may not show well beside some of the records made at the sawing matches, but it must stand. About this time I thought it would be a good idea to take the measuring stick and mark off the rest of the stub. Twenty-nine more cuts. At five hundred strokes to the cut, you can figure out what that would amount to. When I realized what this meant I sat on the log and, as Meredith says, my “thoughts began to bloat like poisoned toads.” Would the sun never go down? I was killing time as shamelessly as a plumber. To work again, and then another blister broke. I don’t believe the stories they tell about two men cutting eight cords of wood in a day with a crosscut saw.

As the dragging minutes passed I began to sympathize with Sisyphus, who had to roll a stone uphill, only to find that it always rolled back. No matter how savagely I yanked that saw towards me, it would be yanked away. As I kept up the dreary task I began to admire Schopenhauer, and decided that henceforth I would be an outspoken pessimist. Still the saw whimpered “Tang, Tan-n-n-n-g!”

At last, when “even despair grew mild,” I was told the time had come to do chores. Without a word I shambled towards home and, like Hosea Biglow, I went

Also like Hosea, I was

When I reached the house I picked out the kindest-looking chair I could find and fell into it. I don’t believe we shall need any more summer wood. Besides, after such a steady winter, we are almost sure to have a hot summer.

That fool weasel or ermine was in the trap this morning. You needn’t tell me that they are cunning or anything of that sort. By the way, working a crosscut saw isn’t nearly so bad a job on the second day. One can get used to anything.

IN THE WIND

Because the February winds were high and the roads were rough I elected to walk to the post office instead of driving. The thermometer stood at ten above, although the sun was shining at its winter best and

The first few minutes were trying, but fast walking and fighting with the wind soon made me glow with warmth and I began to enter into the spirit of the day. The frosty air was exhilarating and before I realized what I was doing I was spouting poetry like a schoolboy. It is amazing how much good poetry there is in the language about winds—not simply about zephyrs and breezes, but about roaring winds, such as I was breasting. Shakespeare, Shelley, Wordsworth, Burns and a score of others offered their best to my awakened memories. And they gave me a thrill that I never found in them in the library. It is only when battling with the winter’s west wind that you can appreciate such a bit as this from Shelley’s great ode:

This seemed so good—so much better than it had ever before, although it has been a favourite passage almost since I can remember—that I checked myself to find the reason. And then I remembered Thoreau: “So there is one thought for the field, another for the house. I would have my thought, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tested in the house.”

Undoubtedly Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” was meant to be enjoyed in the open, on such a day as this. Even Coleridge’s “Mad Lutanist” of the “Ode to Dejection,” so confessedly a library production, seemed better in the windswept fields:

But even better was the picture of the poet on the perilous mountainside, listening to the wind and

It was surely at such a time that he conceived the figure of Liberty:

One by one I tested my favourites, and even the most bookish seemed better as the words were blown from my lips by the rushing winds. And then in the shelter of the woods, snatches from Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road” seemed best:

In this purifying wind what sophistries could endure? This cold sunlight would shine piteously through the murkiest fog-banks of thought. It was surely a day to clear the cobwebs from a man’s brain.

As I trudged along over the crisp, frozen grass and occasional ice-covered ponds, my thoughts “grew sharp and clear.” The sunlight filled the world to the farthest horizon and the wind lulled me with its long rhythms while I battled with its fury. In that cold and stainless solitude I felt the urge of poetry for which we have no words, and saw beauty for which there is no art. Nature, even in her wildest mid-winter mood, was so overwhelming that I could scarcely believe Coleridge, and yet I know his words are true:

LOGGING

More than once when coming in with an armful of wood that was cut and split just to keep the fire going, I have heard the remark: “If we ever get a year’s wood cut, split, and piled, I shall have a photographer come and make a picture of it.” So when word came that the buzz-saw men would be in the neighbourhood in a few days I felt a longing to see one of these pictures myself. I felt that it would be a great joy to take the bucksaw and axe and put them away in some safe place and then forget where I had put them. For almost a year we had been preparing spasmodically for a day with the buzz-saw. All the tops and little trees that we bought last winter had been cut and most of them had been hauled to a knoll in the woods and piled. But there was still a full day’s work to do at hauling up the larger logs and skidding them in a heap. Having in my mind’s eye a picture of that year’s wood neatly piled and of an axe and bucksaw losing the brightness that comes from constant use, I agreed cheerfully to help at the skidding. Although the snow was a trifle deep, it was an ideal day for such work. The logs slipped over the ground as if they were greased and the air was too frosty for the snow to melt on your clothes. The woods protected us from the wind that whirled the snow in ghostly drifts across the fields and the work was hard enough to keep us comfortably warm. But before “snaking” up the logs we had to provide ourselves with handspikes, and that showed me how thoroughly the cattle have been destroying the forests. There was not a sapling to be found that was small enough to make a handspike. Every seedling that had sprouted in the past forty years had been nibbled down by the cows and sheep that had been allowed to run in the woods. We had to make handspikes from the straightest limbs we could find. They were not like the blue beeches and ironwoods of earlier days, but they served our needs. The logs were not very big, anyway, and a two-inch handspike made from a maple limb can stand all the muscle I have to spare for heavy work.

Skidding up logs is not what you would call steady work. It is spasmodic, and it is the spasms that catch a fellow. While we were laying the first tier it was comparatively easy. It was no particular trick to pry loose the logs so that we could get chainhold, and most of my time was spent in walking from the pile to the scattered logs, with the handspike over my shoulder. I felt quite primitive, and thought I was getting a better appreciation of what it meant to be a pioneer. But the second tier made a difference. The logs had to be rolled up on skids, and that meant some moments of heavy lifting, pushing, and heaving with the handspikes. No matter how skilful a man may be at “soldiering” and at taking the little end of the log and doing the grunting while the other man takes the big end and does the lifting, there are bound to be times when he will have to put out every ounce of his strength to keep about a ton of maple from falling back on top of him. After one of those strenuous moments I suddenly remembered a triumphant phrase of cunningly wrought coarseness that described the effort I had put forth with a vigour and accuracy far beyond the possibilities of the vocabulary I am now using. I had heard it long ago from a moss-backed ruffian who had been lifting one of the old horsepowers they once used with thrashing machines. It was a phrase of more than Elizabethan frankness, but somehow it did not seem so bad out in the woods in connection with fierce physical action. Its robust humour could have been conceived only by an imaginative pioneer who knew hard work in all its phases, but, though everything connected with the pioneers is of interest to me, I am afraid I must allow that phrase to pass into oblivion. Still it had its value, for it reminded me of the fact that there were men among the Makers of Canada whose mental attitude would be more thoroughly appreciated by Burns than by Longfellow. Clearing the land was not a pink tea affair, and it is not surprising that some of the rough diamonds who did the work described it with brutal frankness.

The supreme moment of the day came after we had heaved a big, cranky, bowed log into its place at the top of the pile. A couple of times it almost slipped back, but by heaving and straining we made it go up. When it was in its place and we stopped, panting and breathless, I could see stars in every direction. My brain was absolutely vacant—every thought and idea crushed out of it, just as you might squeeze water out of a sponge. While the other man drove away to get another log I sat down to recover myself. Then came the flush of exaltation that always comes to everyone when something has been accomplished. I was strangely in accord with the world of effort in which we are living. Not thinking, but accepting all things, for one great moment I was exalted above the struggle. Somehow the things that I often rage against seemed intelligible and part of one great plan that is working out for the good of all. It was

Thinking it over afterwards, I understood what Thoreau meant when he wrote:

But it was some time before definite thoughts came back to me. Almost unconsciously I began noting my surroundings as part of a great picture or mood that I would wish to remember. I saw the grey sky and the snowflakes sifting down between me and the trees. I noticed a woodpecker busy on a lichened trunk and heard the distant clamour of cattle.

In spite of the momentary physical exhaustion the feeling experienced was one of joyousness—a joyousness that comes to all men who accomplish a task, however humble. It was probably such moments that Bergson had in mind when he wrote:

Man always seeks joy, and he can find it when skidding logs as easily as when painting a picture, and the effort in one case is as noble as in the other. Joy is always evanescent, but I clung to my moment as long as I could.

And then, and then I had to come back to the earth and tackle another log. But what does it matter? All things are in the day’s work just the same, whether it be heaving on a handspike or doing paragraphs that are wickedly designed—to parody Shelley:

In the everyday world where we drudge joylessly most of the time everything seems to be at sixes and sevens, and we could hardly endure it were it not for the moments when something jars us out of ourselves into accord with the great purpose of all things. And I firmly believe that every being that draws the breath of life has such moments, though he may not know how to give them expression. It is in such moments that we feel that all men are free and equal. The joy of the ditcher who accomplishes his task supremely well is the same as that of the millionaire who puts through a successful deal, or of the artist or poet. It is nonsense to say that all the poetry of the world has been written. Every moment of joy is a living poem, and such moments come to all of us somehow, sometime.

THE WINTER SUN

Why should a king want a throne when he might sit on the south side of a straw stack on such a day as this? I feel today as if I had been assigned to write about the sunshine and would never again want to write about anything else. A great painter once said to me: “No matter what a man thinks he is painting, he is really painting light.” Why shouldn’t it be the same with writing? Why shouldn’t a man devote himself to writing about light? It is a theme of infinite possibilities.

After taking a lungful of good morning air and a draft of the sunlight I began to stir around to find something to do, to work off the superfluous steam. The wood-pile caught my eye and I went to it. But I was grievously disappointed. The last maple they cut down and hauled home in slabs splits so easily that there is no satisfaction in working at it. A tap with the axe splits off a stick every time. I was wanting something to wrestle with: a knot—what Carman calls a “gnarl the good sap goes askew in”—that would make me put forth a real effort and arouse the joy of achievement. To tear apart a tough stick of wood gives a man just as much of a thrill as anything else he can undertake, if he really puts his heart into it. But all I had to do to the wood at present on the chip-hill was to give it love-taps and it fell apart. Finding that there was nothing really stimulating in dealing with this kind of wood, Sheppy and I started to the road to get the mail. While walking I had an uneasy feeling that I was taking too animal an enjoyment out of things and that I was not showing enough respect for the great doings of the world. But I seemed to have a subconscious conviction that while that old—and ever-young—sun was shining up there, and while the wind was blowing as of old, nothing could go permanently wrong with the world.

SUN WORSHIP

Some of my Celtic ancestors must have been sun and tree worshippers, for when the spring comes back I am conscious of promptings that are not accounted for in my philosophy. I want to see the sun rise and to see it set, and to chum with it all through the day. A few hours of such sunshine as we are having makes me feel as if I had never done anything wrong in my life. And when the trees begin to show signs of rousing from their winter sleep I want to shake hands—or limbs—with them and bid them welcome to our city. I think that much could be said in favour of my Druidical forefathers. Perhaps there was more that was human than inhuman in their rites. But instead of a grove of many-centuried oaks and a mystic circle of stones, I have a nicely orientated sugar-bush and an arch of broken bricks, and instead of a Beltane fire on a mountain top I have a fire under a sheet-iron pan. The poet priest who gives me counsel and comfort while at my work is that glorious modern Pagan St. Kavin, for

In spite of the frosty nights, the hepaticas are back, and the spring beauties are back, and the birds are back and the grass is showing green everywhere. There is life everywhere and joy everywhere and poetry everywhere until Shakespeare’s passionate cry becomes a commonplace of this perfect day.

THOSE ASPARAGI

Who sent those asparagi? Who took the joy out of life in this lush vernal season and filled me with yearning and envy? Up to last Saturday, when I went out to mow a swath of asparagus I stepped high and swelled out my chest. No asparagus I had ever seen could equal ours for fatness and luscious tenderness. I had been in the habit of speaking disparagingly—I had almost said disasparagingly—of the spindling portions served at the best hotels. But my pride has been punctured, and has collapsed like a toy balloon. The Saturday evening mail brought two stalks of asparagus such as never was on sea or land. They rank with the grapes of Eshcol and the Sequoia of Calaveras among vegetable growths. Each stalk has fully eight inches of alluring succulence, and each is over an inch thick. What adventurer voyaging from the Fortunate Islands or the Gardens of the Hesperides brought home the roots from which shot up these massy pillars of growth? What is the name of this incomparable variety, and where can plants be secured? Our asparagus will only serve as a garnish for these leviathans when we are done using them for show purposes and finally bring them to the table. And in the meantime I shall watch every mail to see if the gardener who produced these asparagi is as merciful as he is great. I acknowledge that I am beaten, and hold forth my hands in pleading. I want to know where I can get the makings of such an asparagus bed as he must have. And I want to know how to feed the shoots to such plumpness. Write soon!

A LITTLE WALK

One spring morning four, or perhaps five, years ago, the youngest boy and I took a little walk that may leave its record on the farm for more years than anything that has been accomplished on it since the original clearing of the land. He had found some sprouting acorns under the big white oak near the house, and he brought them to me. As it was an idle morning we decided at once that the acorns should be given a chance. We filled our pockets with them and went out to the woodlot. There we rambled about, stopping every few rods to plant one of our sprouted acorns. Then we forgot all about our little adventure in reforestation. As oak trees make a slow growth, the results of our plantings were hidden by thousands of faster-growing sugar maples and the pines, chestnuts and other trees that had been planted some years earlier. But one day last week I happened to notice a thrifty little oak growing on a little knoll beside one of the few small boulders on the place. At once I remembered distinctly that we had planted an acorn on that spot. By an effort of memory I recalled other spots where we had planted acorns, and on visiting them found lusty little oaks. While I found it impossible to retrace all our steps on that spring morning, because the undergrowth was too thick, I found a number of little oaks that were undoubtedly of that planting. Although it will be many years before they become noticeable among the faster-growing trees, “the many-centuried oaks,” if undisturbed, will outlast all the others. As the years pass the course of our morning ramble will become definitely marked with noble trees. Future generations will perhaps wonder how this particular woodlot happened to have so generous a supply of white oaks, and in examining the giant trees may retrace the steps of our morning walk. Who knows but taking that morning walk with our pockets full of acorns may prove to be the most enduring thing that either of us will have done? In any case, we did something worthwhile.

SPRING BONFIRES

There is one spring job that is common to city, town, and country and to all countries. No matter where we live, we must rake up the lawn and have a bonfire. And if we have no lawn we clean up the fire-escape and have our little blaze in the kitchen range. No matter where we live, this spring rite must be attended to. And I am inclined to think that it has been the same through all the ages since man first learned to use fire.

This unanimity of all men and women, and even children—for the children rake together rubbish and have their bonfires, too—must be something more than an impulse towards tidiness. It is a racial impulse, and in moments of profundity and learning I incline to connect it with the ancient rites of fire-worship. Listen to this from the Century Dictionary:

Doesn’t that last sentence show how blind learned men can be? I’ll bet a cookie that the scholar who wrote that definition has been having his little bonfire every spring and never realized that he was as much a heathen as the people of the “remote localities” he had in mind.

When all the Beltane fires were burning in the city and country I had a heartfelt wish that I could have a mental spring cleaning-up. For lo! these many years people have been dumping their intellectual tin cans and wastepaper in my mental backyard, and I have even busied myself gathering similar rubbish, because that is the popular thing to do. If it were only possible, I would rake it into a pile and burn all of it that would burn, and then dig a hole and bury the rest. I feel as if my mind were cluttered up with stuff that is as useless as what we raked from the lawn. On these fine spring mornings it seems to me that a man should be able to get as much from an hour on the south side of the straw stack or from the doorstep where he could sit in the sun and be sheltered from the wind as from a course in college. Now is the time to enjoy Bliss Carman at his best. I have probably quoted this before, but no matter. I feel like making a vow to quote it every spring:

To realize that stanza fully is to have more than you can get from all the books and all the colleges. It puts us in harmony with the universe. After loafing for an hour or so in the proper environment with these wonderful rhythms beating in my brain I feel that I should like to hark back to an earlier age and face life as lightly equipped mentally and physically as Nimrod, who was “a mighty hunter before the Lord.” At such times I feel that we have had something too much of employing our time profitably and that it would be healthy for us to have occasional hours of profitable idleness.

Some people make their virtues more unendurable than vices.

 

 

A MODERN BESTIARY

 

 

A PAGE OF HIGH HISTORY

This is the story of a “harmless, necessary cat.” I think I told you some time ago that the children make it a practice to name their cats after prominent personages in history and public life. Lady Jane Grey is a gentle, domesticated cat of many admirable qualities and her name seems very appropriate. Her fur is grey, her table manners perfect, and in disposition she is kind and affectionate. The other cats have been named with equal judgment and discretion, but I dare not mention their names for fear that public men who have not been honoured might feel jealous. I had become quite accustomed to the high-sounding names of the household pets, and had acquired the habit of inquiring every night at bedtime for the whereabouts of certain distinguished persons. Often and often when shutting up the house for the night I have kicked out some of our most honoured names just as ruthlessly as if I were an office-hungry Opposition returning to power. And now it is my privilege to record a great event. New Year’s Day there was great news. The children learned with pride and delight that their favourite cat had been honoured with a title. Instantly there was wild excitement. The distinguished cat was called by his familiar name, and finally was found in a shed, where he was trying to think up some scheme for commandeering a quarter of beef that hung beyond his reach. He was hurried into the house for the ceremony of dubbing, and while the preparations were being made he purred as contentedly as if he knew just what was happening. I was really surprised to see how well the children understood what to do. While one held him in a respectful attitude in front of a Morris chair another got the carving knife and prepared to administer the accolade. There was only a moment’s pause while they asked me to indicate the exact spot on his neck that should be smitten by the ennobling sword. Then they completed the ceremony with “a riband to stick in his coat.”

As cats are by nature the most aristocratic of animals, this one took his new honours with the air of one who was used to them, though he caused some criticism by switching his tail in an unknightly fashion. Seated high on a sofa cushion, he purred contentedly and received the homage of his loyal retainers. He closed his eyes, bristled up his whiskers and smiled like a Cheshire cat. Even Sir Jingo McBore could not have given him any pointers on noble and knightly conduct. I am afraid that if he receives much more homage of this kind he will become too haughty to associate with the other cats and will pose as “the cat that walks alone.” Still his nature may not be changed entirely by his new-found honours. I noticed that once in a while he would stretch out a paw in a sleepy way and spread his claws as if he were dreaming of mice, for he has been a famous mouser. I hate to think that he may become a social butterfly on account of his title, but a stanza from Calverly haunts my memory. As nearly as I can remember it runs like this:

THE COLLIE PUP

After mature consideration and much wrath, it was finally decided that the never-ending audacity of Plymouth Rock hens was no longer to be endured. Not only did they insist on using the hollyhock bed as a dusting resort, but they showed an investigating spirit regarding all newly seeded garden spots that was intolerable. So it was decided that we must get a pup—a collie pup. He would be trained to make those hens respect the rights of minorities, and when he got his growth he could make pigs curb their aggressiveness and show a due regard for boundaries. We could all think of things that a collie dog might do and of steps that he could save us. So we negotiated for a pup. Last Wednesday he arrived by express at the local station and completed his journey on the bicycle of one of his enthusiastic owners. He looked subdued and friendless, but after he had broken bread with us and had a drink of milk he evidently made up his mind that we were not a bad sort, and decided to make himself at home. At the present stage in his development he looks as if he belonged to the Teddy Bear family. His colour is a light buff and he has black markings around his eyes that give him the appearance of wearing tortoise-shell glasses. He is ready for play at all times, and his whereabouts may be determined by the yells of persons wearing low shoes and having exposed ankles. He cannot see ankles without wanting to try his teeth on them. After a play he has a way of suddenly squatting on his haunches and looking at one solemnly. He looks as if he were going to develop into a really thoughtful and considerate dog.

The first thing our collie pup had to do was to get acquainted with the farm’s population of cats with high political titles. Evidently he hadn’t had much experience of cats, for he rushed up on them without understanding the meaning of arched backs and fluffed-up tails. Before he could be rescued he got a scratched nose, and he whimpered pitifully. But it didn’t take him long to learn that cats are not nearly so cuddly as they look. When he sees one now his head goes down between his front paws and he jumps back and forth barking saucily. And there is always trouble at feeding time. The titled cat swings a nasty paw—and he insists on getting the last bite when there are pickings to be had. But the pup will soon be able to take care of himself. The cats know in their hearts that when he gets his growth they will have to step lively, and they hate him accordingly. As he is only about two months old it is a little early to begin his training. But I have noticed his young owners studying a newspaper clipping which tells all about the training of a collie dog. At first I was rather amazed to realize that learning is now so widely diffused that we have pundits who do not hesitate to interfere in the education of a pup. But a little reflection made me realize that the education of dogs is perhaps an older institution than the education of human beings, and that the Minister of Education in the older orders of society devoted his time entirely to the supervision of dogs and horses. Every feudal castle had its Master of the Hounds, who educated the dogs, and their owners valued them more than they did their serfs. Does not Browning tell us that a deposed Roman Emperor ended his days as a tutor for dogs and an expert at treating their ailments? He sings of the unfortunate Protus, who was dethroned by John the Pannonian:

So it is evident that no apology need be made for devoting thought to the care of a dog. Many notable precedents could be quoted.

ON GUARD!

Bildad, the collie pup, is making himself quite at home, and is taking charge of the place. I made a mistake in predicting that he would be called Bill for short. He is receiving his full title, and when he hears the call, “Bildad! the hens!” he knows just what is expected of him. With his tongue waggling at one end and his tail waggling at the other he pursues the hens under the flowering currants and rose bushes until they fly cackling to the barn. He is undisputed master of the lawn, and knows that hens are not to be tolerated. He has made friends with most of the cats, but there is still an occasional row. Dignified cats do not care to be romped with by a pup, and they spit and snarl. But they are learning rapidly that a vicious scratch does not scare off Bildad. The touch of a claw enrages him and he rushes right in to fight at close quarters, and even the proudest of the cats has to turn tail and climb the nearest tree. And when he is getting his meals he acknowledges no friendships. The cats sit at a distance and wait, in the hope that something may be left over.

Bildad has discovered the use of his voice and promises to be a barker of much volume. This morning he was lying beside the door when a neighbour walked up. As the pup was not expecting visitors, he let out a roar that startled the whole household and brought us all running to see what was the matter. No one can now approach the house without arousing a warning bark from our self-important watch-dog. He takes himself very seriously, but he will have to learn just when and at what he should bark. Yesterday he began to bark furiously, and when I went to see what was the matter I found him barking at the cows that were fully forty rods away in the pasture field. It seems to give him a sense of power and authority to be able to bark, but he lacks discrimination. He barks at every automobile that passes on the road, and there are times when he is a very busy and noisy dog. We must teach him that it is enough to bark at automobiles that turn into the lane, so that we can have time to get on our coats before visitors arrive. At first I thought I would have to put up a sign in the lane—“Keep Off the Pup”—but he seems to have a very proper fear of cars. As he barks at them he backs away under the rose bushes or lilacs where they will not be likely to follow him. As he now turns the tips of his ears forward when his attention is attracted to anything, Bildad is beginning to look very knowing and intelligent.

Bildad is altogether too serious-minded. He is such a glutton for work that I feel rebuked by his industry. At his age he should be devoted to eating and play, but what he wants is work. As long as anyone is stirring on the farm Bildad is sure to be about and eager for something to do. He even has to be called to his meals, and if when he is eating he hears a whistle or hears someone yelling at the pigs or cows he will leave what remains of his meal to the cats and rush away to make himself useful. And he really manages to be useful. Hens on the lawn or near the house are now a memory. Bildad has educated them to the fact that there is a deadline between the barn and the house that must not be crossed. And on several occasions he has gone clear across the pasture field—fully forty rods—to bring home the cows. He is always taken along when the cows are being brought home, and now he seems to understand pretty well just what is expected of him. One evening when we were working about the barn he started off by himself, without anyone issuing orders, and began to round up the cows. Of course, he is always praised when he does anything right, and praise is what he is greedy for. Of course, he comes in for some punishment, too, when he fails to obey orders, and he evidently expects it. One day he was crossing a clover field with one of the boys when he started a little rabbit. Whether he caught it in his mouth or simply reached out for it with his paw, as he does when sparring with the cats, is not known, but the rabbit let out a wild squeal such as only rabbits can utter. Bildad apparently thought he had done something wrong, for he rushed back to the boy and crawled and grovelled at his feet as if he expected to be punished. On the whole he promises to develop into a useful farm dog, but he is too serious for his age. He should scamper around more than he does.

BILDAD’S PROGRESS

Bildad continues to get more human every day. I am not sure that I approve of the superior airs he is developing, now that the boys are letting him ride about the farm in the waggon whenever they are hauling home wood or doing other farm teaming. It did not take him any time to learn that it is pleasant to ride in an exalted place and look down on common people. He took to joy-riding like a profiteer, and now whenever the horses are hitched up he climbs aboard the waggon. He has even climbed into the buggy and enthroned himself on the seat, but his rides in this high state have been short, for he is not allowed to leave the farm. But no human being could look more satisfied with himself than Bildad does when enjoying a ride. He doesn’t even deign to bark at pigs or cows when passing them in the fields, and once when he drove by me in the lane he cut me dead. He was looking out over the world and seeing only far horizons. No human being I have ever known developed a more clear case of uppishness after a little success than Bildad exhibits right now. The next thing we know he will be wanting us to get an automobile for him and will refuse to go after the cows on foot. But, like many a human being, Bildad may get a severe jolt some day. Pride goeth...

UNIPAROUS

The names of the animals and fowls on this farm are not what they used to be. They are beginning to show signs of over-sophistication. To name the collie pup Bildad was going far enough, but every day I am discovering something new. Now that Bildad is growing up and taking charge of the farm, his exploits furnish family conversation, but I admit that I was stumped when I was told that he had to be punished for chasing Uniparous. I groped unsuccessfully through my memory of the old Latin roots they used to teach out of a spelling book that was used when I went to school. Uniparous was beyond me and I had to ask for help. I learned that a setting of Devonshire Games yielded only one chicken, hence Uniparous—giving birth to only one. I admit that the name is rather catchy, but it is too deep for everyday use. Possibly the chicken will develop into a masterful gamecock and the name will be shortened to Nip. At present Uniparous is receiving the whole attention of one Ancona hen, and in her quest for food she brought him to the flower beds. Doing his duty as he saw it, Bildad rushed them, and it might have gone hard with Uniparous if he had not been rescued. It became necessary to impress on Bildad that young chickens are not to be attacked as roughly as old hens. I received my next shock when I was told that Bildad had been chasing Abib and Karshish. I threw up my hands at once and was informed that Abib and Karshish are the spring calves. The naming of them records an unsuspected dip into Browning. The logic of the naming is not entirely clear. Though I put these names on record, I cannot say that I approve of them. But I am beginning to understand the careworn look that has been showing on the face of Bildad. Now that he is growing up and making himself useful he must find it hard to remember these names. If things keep on this way Bildad will need a college education before he can undertake to keep the other animals in order.

SHEPPY

I have received so many inquiries about the education of Sheppy, the collie, that it seems time to report progress, although there has been very little. Sheppy is willing to go to the barnyard without being dragged by a rope. He has even gone so far as to drive one cow across the yard, but it’s seldom long before he remembers something and bolts back to the house. I am beginning to wonder if this is not a case where corporal punishment would be justified. Moral suasion seems to have no effect. And every day he is developing so much steam that he is in danger of getting into trouble unless he finds some useful outlet for his energies. Every day he has an outburst that would raise the countryside if these were the dog-days. He will start running wildly around the house, barking, with his head down, snapping at posts and trees, and he will keep up the performance for several minutes. Then he will stop as suddenly as he started and come up to anyone who has been watching, evidently wanting to be petted and praised for his performance. Some people might think he was going mad, but I am convinced that his case should be diagnosed as Mr. Bumble diagnosed that of Oliver Twist. “It’s meat.” He is living too high and is in need of work. He is becoming quite expert at catching mice in the fields, but that is hardly the proper occupation for a dog with a pedigree. I know he should be trained to look after the children like those dogs we sometimes read about, but he gets altogether too much fun out of pulling off their caps and mitts and running away with them to be allowed any position of responsibility. Oh, well, he’ll grow old and be a serious dog quite soon enough. I guess I’ll let him enjoy himself while he can. It is really worthwhile having one bit of irresponsible joyousness frolicking about the place. No one can look at Sheppy without accepting his invitations to have a play with him, and that of itself justifies his existence.

A DISSOLUTE PUP

I hope we don’t have a mad-dog scare this summer. If we do I am afraid it is all up with Sheppy, the dog. He is so full of irrepressible fool energy that he can’t help falling under suspicion of being afflicted with rabies. Every once in a while the steam gets hissing at his safety valve and he simply can’t contain himself. He will start running around in wide circles, with head down and tongue lolling out, barking and snapping at everything he passes. I admit that I might be alarmed myself if I had not seen him act in the same way in mid-winter. The explanation seems to be that he gets so full of the joy of life that he simply has to act foolish to express his emotion. Of course I know it is wrong, if not positively immoral, for him to act in that way in a province so sedate and well ordered as Ontario, but I cannot find it in my heart to check him. And he has a wicked habit of taking the end of a stick in his mouth and running around the children until one of them grabs the other end, and they go for a romp together. I know in my heart that this should not be allowed. Sheppy should be taught to work off his superfluous energy on one of those treadmill churns they advertise in the farm papers, and the children should be doing their homework or reading improving books. As for me, I know that I should not be lying on my stomach on the grass, laughing at their antics. I should be doing something to improve my mind, such as sitting on the roadside fence discussing reciprocity with some neighbour who doesn’t know any more about it than I do. But I am afraid that I have fallen too much into the way of Carman’s St. Kavin, who

With a whole province full of people who are setting me good examples of serious-mindedness and industry and all the virtues, I have become so hardened that I can spend an hour at any time watching the pup and the children at play and never think of reproving them. I know this is very, very wrong, and—and—

NATURE STUDY AT HOME

It is just possible that the hen has been studied too much from a utilitarian or practical point of view. If allowed to pass the succulent broiler stage she is regarded simply as an egg-producing machine, and after a useful life she sinks unsung into the pot pie or fricassee. If instead of being born a hen she had been born a water wagtail, or some bird of no economic value, her charms and social habits would be embalmed in a Saturday editorial. Her cunning little ways would be closely observed and set down with delicate humour, and exceptional literary grace would be used to give her a niche in the Globe’s gallery of nature friends. These thoughts were in my mind as I went out of the house this morning, and, as luck would have it, the first thing that caught my eye was a Buff Orpington that was pursuing the early worm to its lair in a flower bed. The fact that that flower bed is placed where no flower bed should be, and was so placed against my earnest protests, reconciled me to what was going on. I decided at once that the time was favourable for a study of the hen. Betaking myself to a sunny corner of the coal box, I sat down and began to observe. The hen was of robust habit, but apparently in thorough athletic training. The soil in which she was scratching was of the kind that would be given a low classification by a constructive engineer or a parliamentary investigating committee. It was a sandy loam, and I had to mind my eyes whenever she scattered it in my direction. The first outstanding fact that I gathered was that this particular hen had a definite method of procedure to which she adhered with remarkable singleness of purpose. Lowering her head, she examined the ground first with one eye and then with the other. Then she stepped forward with the confident air of a baseball star going to the bat, scratched once with one foot and then twice with the other. If she scratched first with the right foot she would scratch twice with the left, and vice versa. Then she would step back and carefully examine the field of her depredations. If no worm was in evidence she would step forward briskly and repeat the performance. As I had never read this in any book or paper dealing with the hen and her habits, I took out my notebook and began to secure material for a future scientific article. But I was doomed to disappointment. At this moment a door bulged open and an apparition with a broom swooped down on that hen. She fled squawking, and I discreetly slipped around the corner of the house. I might have found it hard to explain why that hen hadn’t been shooed away.

To be a place of complete happiness heaven must be a place where we will be allowed to do the things we think ourselves fitted to do on earth.

THE USEFUL HEN

Everybody is of the opinion that this is too early for spring but everybody is doing spring work, just the same. Those who had their ploughing done in the fall are practically done with their seeding, and those who left their ploughing for the spring are busy at it. My interests do not fly beyond a little garden where I am trying to establish a sphere of influence that will be respected by the hens. At present the hens are helping me find all the holes in and under the wire fence. If they happen to find one when I am not around they reward themselves by scratching up a bed of seeds. This helps to keep my attention on the work, though I am perhaps not as grateful as I should be. In fact I sometimes so far forget myself as to speak to them in a loud tone of voice, and I am not sure but some of the tiredness in my arms comes from throwing clods. But the hens hardly play fair with me. When they find a hole they will not show me where it is by going out through it when requested. On the contrary, the only way to get them out is to chase them wildly until they take to their wings, and then they will fly over the top of the fence. As for going out through the newly-discovered hole through which they entered, they will never do that—“never! never! never!” They are as positive on the point as the Earl of Chatham was on the rights of the rebellious colonists. But matters are improving. Relations with the hens are not quite so strained as they were. By making “a few unimportant concessions” war has been averted. Besides, the hens are getting so busy laying eggs and cackling over them that they have little time for the garden.

A PLEASANT HABIT

This morning I hunted up the ducks for the purpose of trying to get a sympathetic understanding of their view of life. I had no trouble finding them. Ever since the oats have been hauled in they haven’t wandered very far from the stack. Besides getting all the heads that were exposed within reach, they rob the hens whenever they manage to scratch loose a few grains. As the wet weather has filled all the puddles around the barnyard they do not have to go far for water, and I would give something to be as contented with my lot as they are. I found them lying under the granary with their heads tucked under their wings, and the first thing that struck me about them was the satisfying way in which they lie down. They seem to be built for just that kind of restfulness. When a duck lies down it does it in a whole-souled way that leaves nothing to be desired. It touches the ground from its crop to its tail and gives an exhibition of perfect rest that is worthy of a poem. Come to think of it, there is nothing surprising about this. Ducks are water birds, and the attitude of swimming is the one that they naturally take. Nature intended them to lie at full length in their own element, and now that they have been civilized into living on land, out of their element, they keep to the old habit. If the ground had not been so wet I would have sprawled down at full length to watch them, and would have shown them that when it comes to taking a rest they have nothing on me. When the conditions are right I can assume a restful attitude and rest as completely as anything in nature. But some people do not regard this as resting. They have another unpleasant word to describe it.

THE DUCKLINGS

I have had it in mind for some time to make a careful and exhaustive study of the young ducks, but they are too active and the weather is too hot. Most people have an impression that ducks are placid creatures that habitually float around on ponds and live a kind of amphibious existence like the idle rich at a summer resort. As usual the popular opinion, in which I shared until a few days ago, is all wrong. At the present writing I regard the duck as the embodiment of action. If you stop to think about it you can understand why this is so. A bird does not get the reputation of being omnivorous without being unusually active. A duck’s diet ranges from moths and flies in the air to slugs and snails on the ground and the roots of plants in the bottoms of ponds and streams. It takes everything within its range that flies, crawls, swims, or grows. It strains water through its beak for the smallest insects and particles of food, and I have seen a three-inch frog disappear into a duck’s capacious gullet. Besides they are always ready for a feed of grain or table scraps. In their native state they are models of efficiency. They can live in the air, on the earth, or in the water. They are possessed of all means of locomotion. They can fly better than airships, dive better than submarines, and if you try to follow them in their predatory rambles in the fields you will find you will need an automobile. Their web feet serve as propellers when swimming and as snowshoes in the winter. Nature has fitted ducks to live in any and all conditions, and when they are young they live up to all their possibilities.

While watching the young ducks for the purposes of this article, I was led to wonder why they have received so little attention from our artists. A duck in action shows more life and energy than the horses rising from the sea on the frieze of the Parthenon. As nearly as I can judge, it is the only creature that uses all dimensions of space in its movements. A horse when running moves in only one dimension. A cow moves in two dimensions, for while moving forward she swings her legs sideways. But a duck when travelling moves forward with its legs, sideways with its body and all the time has its head bobbing up and down. In this way it is constantly moving in the three dimensions and exhibiting motion in all its forms. The artist who is ambitious to make a vivid picture should study the duck. But besides using the three dimensions of space the duck shows its activity in other ways. For instance, when it is pursuing a nimble bug or grasshopper it not only runs, but when it is within striking distance it shoots out its neck like a rattlesnake. This doubles the speed of its approach and gives its attacks a suddenness that is overwhelming. In fact, the young ducks are so supernaturally active that it brings out the sweat on my brow even to sit at the typewriter and describe them.

The more I tried to study the young ducks the more I felt the effects of the heat. My observations presently became breathless and disjointed, for the ducks could scoot through the wire fences, while I had to climb over—a decidedly ticklish operation. At last I got so tired that I threw myself on the grass under a shady tree and went to sleep. Then the ducklings came around and studied me. They squatted on the grass and conversed in low tones until I finally awakened. Then I decided that I had found the best way to study them. All I had to do was keep still and they would pass me every few minutes in their rushing excursions around the farm. Between sleeping and watching and enjoying the splendid summer day, I made these disjointed notes that I would elaborate into a real article if I didn’t feel so lazy—I mean leisurely—

A duck plays close to the ground, like a politician who represents a country constituency.

A duckling gets as much pleasure and pride out of its first feathers as a boy does out of the first hairs of his moustache. Compare appetite of a young duckling and of a growing boy.

A duck always watches you with one eye and has the other on the watch for bugs and eatables. Query: Do a duck’s eyes move together or independently of each other? As they are set so far apart there would be no advantage in having them move together. Perhaps they do not move at all. They are so placed that they can probably see in most every direction at the same time—I could probably find out by catching a duck, but it is too hot to try to run one down.

When the young ducks get their first feathers they will be ready to fatten for the table—a pleasant thought—

At this point a June thunderstorm drove me into the house, and I left the young ducks trying to flap their scrawny and downy wings and getting ready to enjoy themselves.

WILD TURKEYS

Of all the wild creatures that “faced the new conditions” the turkey fared the best. As the forests disappeared he simply stepped over the fence into the barnyard, where he lords it like a king who has come to his own. There are more turkeys in the country at the present time than when the white man came, and according to tradition they were plentiful then. The first wheat that was sown in the new clearing had to be protected from their depredations, as corn is now protected from the crows. There are stories told of whole flocks being killed by one discharge of an old army musket loaded to the muzzle with buckshot. As for capturing the birds the trick was ridiculously easy. The pioneers built little huts of logs where the turkeys were plentiful, leaving out the bottom log on one side and covering the top with brush. Then they took some corn and dropped it in a trail over the beech knolls where the turkeys fed and into the hut. When the turkeys found the corn they began eating and followed the trail with heads down until they had entered the hut. When the corn was eaten they lifted their heads and found themselves prisoners, for the silly birds never thought of stooping down and going out by the opening through which they had entered. In this way entire flocks were captured, and from those that were kept with clipped wings the tame turkeys of the present day were developed. In some places the tame turkeys still wander away to the woods at brooding time and do not return to the barnyards until driven home by the cold weather. When their natural food is plentiful these birds are as deliciously gamy as the highly prized wild turkeys.

Fourteen years after the discovery of America turkeys are mentioned in the Court annals of England as being part of the royal fare. It is generally supposed that they received their name through a mistaken notion that they had been brought from the East, though it has been suggested that the name was bestowed on them because of the haughty Sultanic appearance of the gobblers. Since their first appearance on the banquet table their place has been assured, and there is no danger that they will disappear like the other wild game of the new world.

AN ELUSIVE TURKEY

We seem to be mistaken in thinking that the wild turkeys have entirely disappeared. As a matter of fact they have simply changed their habits a little in order to adapt themselves to the clearing of the country. This spring the turkey hen that was brought through the winter hid her nest in the hedge about thirty rods from the barn. She was so sly about it that even by watching her it took over a week before her nest was found. She would not go to it while anyone was in sight, and if the watcher relaxed his attention for a moment she would disappear. Finally the nest was located, and the eggs taken away and put under a hen. She hid her nest a second time, farther away, and it was finally located and robbed. Then she disappeared altogether, and no trace of her was found for about six weeks, when a neighbour reported having seen her in his hay field with five young turkeys. That is the last that has been seen of her, but no one is at all worried. I am told that many turkeys act in this way, and will live wild in the woods and fields through the whole summer, keeping as carefully out of sight as the quail, and then the flocks will come to the barns with the first storm of winter. While this is interesting, I presume it is not scientific poultry raising, and I may be criticized for allowing it. Say, this business of getting back to the land is rather ticklish work when a fellow is in danger of being scolded by the scientists when he does wrong, and of being laughed at by other people for whatever he does.

THE GOBBLER: HIS BELLIGERENCY

Now that his mate is hopefully hatching on a promising nestful of eggs, the old gobbler finds time hanging heavy on his hands and by way of diversion is proceeding to beat up all other gobblers in the neighbourhood. Whenever he hears another gobbler, no matter how faintly, he lets out a wrathful gobble and starts across the fields to trample on his rival. Neighbours have had to drive him home in order to save their flocks, for he is in the heavyweight class, and no ordinary country bird has any show with him. Of course, when we found out what he was up to we penned him in, but occasionally he makes his escape, and it takes quick work to keep him from crossing the fields and committing mayhem and tort and doing grievous bodily harm to well-meaning gobblers that venture to gobble their opinions about things. I wouldn’t mind so much if he headed down the road on one of his foraging expeditions, for there is an ecru gobbler suffering from delusions of grandeur that I have a grudge against. One day when I was driving to the village with the colt this earth-coloured gobbler seemed to rise out of the road in front of us, with a great spreading of tail, fluffing of feathers, and rubbing of wings. His appearance was so startling that the colt shied, and in less than five seconds we were all piled in the ditch. The colt didn’t get away and nothing was smashed, but things were pretty lively while the disturbance lasted. If I could only give our war-like bubblyjock the address of that particular gobbler, and he would go after him, I wouldn’t mind his offensives.

THE GOBBLER: HIS DESERTION

Yesterday the old gobbler disappeared on a war expedition and did not return last night. This morning I must organize a rescue party and go after him. The party will be organized not to rescue him, but to rescue the neighbour on whom he has billeted himself. No one has any idea which direction he took, so we may have quite a hunt. But I am not afraid of losing him. An apoplectic gobbler of his size is easy to identify. But the old pirate should be at home, looking after his family, which is at present breaking through the shell. Last season he was a most devoted parent and looked after his family with unflagging care. He took them to the woods to get beech nuts and still kept one eye on the granary door, so that they could be on hand when the chickens were being fed. This year he will not have so large a flock to look after, but that does not excuse him for desertion and neglect. He must be rounded up, brought home and reminded of his duties. Much of the time during the past month he stood, in a very dignified manner, near the nest where his mate has been brooding, so I am surprised that he should have deserted just when his family is breaking from the shell. But a thought strikes me. Perhaps the old rounder is away celebrating.

THE GOBBLER: HIS CARES

The big gobbler is a changed bird these days. The cares of fatherhood are weighing heavily upon him. A few days ago he came across a Plymouth Rock hen that had hatched out a clutch of turkeys. Although they are barely able to toddle around, the gobbler recognized them at once as part of his family and took up his duties as parent in a most commendable manner. With a subdued and responsible air he follows the old hen and the little poults wherever they go, stepping softly and refraining from noisy gobbling. But I am afraid he is not entirely satisfied with the foster mother of his family. After the last big thunderstorm he came up to the door where I was sitting and was evidently very much put out about something. He was wet to his last feather and I have seldom known him to be in such a bad humour. Possibly the old Plymouth Rock didn’t act as a turkey mother should during a thunderstorm. Anyway, he seemed to hold me responsible for whatever went wrong, for he stood out on the lawn and swore at me for half an hour. When I began to get tired of the rumpus and was reaching for a copy of Hansard to throw at him, Sheppy came around the corner of the house. The bubblyjock discreetly sidestepped behind the lilac bushes, for one thing that Sheppy can’t endure is a hen, turkey, or other fowl on the lawn. In spite of his complaints the gobbler is still looking after his duties as a father. A little while ago when the sun was hot I saw him standing beside his flock tail down, head pulled in like a turtle’s, and his wings spread out. He had converted himself into a sort of feathered pergola, under which his children might have taken shelter. But they paid no attention to him. Under the busy and clucking guidance of the old hen they were pursuing the elusive fly and other appetizing insects.

THE GOBBLER: HIS CURSING

Of course, I may be wrong in accusing the turkey gobbler of cursing, but I do not think so. No matter what language man uses, if he speaks as earnestly as that gobbler and in the same tone of voice, it is perfectly safe for a policeman to run him in on a charge of using profane and abusive language, and the court interpreter will show that he was right. Moreover, the gobbler has had family troubles to try his temper this summer. Two flocks of his children were raised by hens, and in spite of his strutting and blandishments they refuse to have anything to do with him. Instead they obey the clucking of the mother hen, and tweet disdainfully at their haughty sire. In addition, his lawful spouse doesn’t seem to care to have him around while she is looking after her flock. She is apparently a suffragette and quite competent to look after her own affairs. Even when a thunderstorm comes up the youngsters do not turn to the old man for protection. That led to a rather pathetic picture a short time ago. A sudden storm roused the paternal instinct in the old fellow. Taking his place near the little flock he spread out his tail and ample wings so that they touched the ground and offered an excellent shelter, but the ungrateful creatures refused to notice him. No wonder his temper seems to have gone bad. He is forced to flock by himself and the lonely life leads him to brood on his wrongs. Since the beginning of the hay harvest he has roosted on the front ladder of the hayrack, and when either man or beast has passed him he has gobbled viciously and “cursed them by their gods.” If there is any truth in the old saying that curses, like chickens, come home to roost, that turkey will have a terrible time of it if the curses he has uttered this summer ever decide to hold an old home week. Though he is a big bird, only a small percentage of them will be able to find a roosting place.

THE GOBBLER: HIS TROUBLES

Last night when we were milking there was a sudden racket on the roof of the cow stable that scared the cows so that they stopped giving down. You would think that a man with a wooden leg was having a fit on the shingles right over our heads. The pounding, flopping, and scratching on the hollow roof made the stable resound like the big drum in an Orange parade. I couldn’t imagine what on earth was happening, but it only took a step to get outdoors and then the cause of the trouble was plain. The old turkey gobbler had decided to roost on the ridge-board of the stable and he was having the time of his life getting up the roof. He was using his wings and his tail to balance himself as he clawed for a toehold, and he showed none of the stately gracefulness that marks his movements when he is strutting around the barnyard and proclaiming his overlordship. When he reached the ridge and caught his balance with a final flip-flap of his broad tail he stretched his neck and looked around to see if any of the young gobblers were grinning at him. They were already quietly at roost with the mother hen at the far end of the roof, and the noisy approach of their lord and king made them huddle together in squeaking terror. Seeing that their attitude was respectful he settled down on his wishbone for the night. Being young and light they had flown gracefully to their chosen roost and doubtless could not understand what was ailing him when he sprawled around like that. I could sympathize with him better than they could, for when a man gets heavy and gets chalky deposits in his joints the climbing stunts he did as a boy become impossible. Time was when I could have walked up that roof as jauntily as if I were on parade on an asphalt sidewalk, but I suspect that if I tried it now I would make more noise than the old gobbler.

TURKEY LORE

Sometime after midnight, Saturday night, the turkey hen flew out of the orchard, making an unearthly racket. She blundered into apple trees with a wild flapping of wings and all the time was shrieking a warning “Phut! phut! phut!” at her little flock. When the mother hen utters a cry that sounds approximately like “Phut! phut!” the youngsters scatter in all directions like quail and hide wherever they can find cover. Something had evidently attacked the turkey hen where she was spending the night with the youngsters under her wings. They had reverted to the wild state at once and had sought safety after the manner of their wild ancestors. As the mother hen’s line of flight took her by the tent she wakened us and we thought of organizing an expedition for the protection of our Christmas dinners, but soon saw that it would be useless. The night was dark and cloudy, with no moon. All we could do was to hope for the best and go to sleep again. I fully expected that some of the youngsters would be missing in the morning, but when we got up we found that she had already gathered her little flock and had all of them. The sudden scattering and the noise made by the mother had evidently disconcerted their enemy. Possibly the fact that we stirred in the tent and talked loudly also helped to frighten it off. Anyway the turkey knew by instinct what to do when danger threatened. One interesting fact about the incident was that on Saturday evening I had learned a new bit of turkey lore. I had noticed that when putting her little flock to sleep the turkey hen had chosen an open spot in the orchard. Instead of trying to hide among the stacks or in one of the buildings, she had chosen an open space where she could see in every direction. I mentioned this to a visiting neighbour and he told me that turkey hens always do this. Until the young poults are able to fly up into a tree to roost they keep them in the open and usually sleep in a spot where they can stretch up their long necks and see in every direction. In this way they can see an approaching enemy. Besides, if they are obliged to scatter to save themselves there are no obstructions to bother them. Although I had been used to turkeys all my life I had not observed it and did not learn about it until a day before the instinctively wise turkey hen had to make use of her hereditary cunning.

HUMAN NATURE
IN DUMB CREATURES

It is a mistake to suppose that any quality, habit, trick, failing, weakness, virtue or other characteristic is peculiar to mankind. The dumb creatures about the place have every one of them. If I were to watch them carefully I feel sure that I could find instances of everything from the Seven Deadly Sins to the Seven Cardinal Virtues, and that without leaving the barnyard. It is all very well for us to talk about getting rid of our animal natures as if that would mark an upward step in our development but what interests me is how to rid the dumb creatures of what can only be described as their human natures. It is always the human things they do that arouse my wrath or make me laugh. For instance, our old gobbler gives every evening one of the most human exhibitions of over-bearing meanness that I have ever witnessed. I thought it was only society people, and a particularly annoying brand of them at that, who had the habit of waiting until other people were comfortably seated at a concert or theatre and then walking in, disturbing everyone and perhaps making quite a few get up to make way for them as they progressed towards their seats. I thought this trick was confined to people who wished to show their importance, and new clothes and didn’t mind how much they bothered other people. But since watching our gobbler going to roost I have come to the conclusion that this kind of conduct on the part of society people at public entertainments is not due to vanity or a desire to show off but to fundamental cussedness and a wicked delight in causing as much discomfort as possible to other people.

The old gobbler has become expert at ascending the roof of the stable and not only does the trick with ease but puts frills on it. When roosting time comes round each evening, the mother hen and her flock of young gobblers and hens go to roost quietly and circumspectly like ordinary folks. The old gobbler, on the contrary, waits around and picks up grains of oats about the stacks and hunts for crickets and keeps up an air of being busy until it is almost dark and the rest of his tribe are settled for the night—or think they are. When he finally makes up his mind that it is bedtime he stretches his neck a few times, first in one direction and then in another, and takes a look at the top of the stable with one eye and then with the other and at last makes a flying leap or a leaping fly that lands him on the ridge-board. That would be all right if he were satisfied after he got there, but he is not. He insists on roosting on the extreme north end of the ridge-board and he always flies up on the south end. There is no reason why he should not fly up at the north end but he never does it and I am inclined to think from watching his actions that he flies up on the south end on purpose. Anyway, as soon as he gets up and gets his balance he starts to walk towards the north along the ridge-board. As soon as he comes to the first of his offspring he gives a sharp peck with his bill and the youngster gets up squeaking and moves along ahead of him. Presently he has them all huddled on the ridge-board along the north end and the fun begins. The polite thing for him to do would be to step down on the shingles and walk around them, but does he do it? I should say not. He gives the nearest youngster a vicious peck that makes him jump in the air and land sprawling a few feet down on the shingles. In rapid succession he deals with the fourteen youngsters and their mother in the same way and for a few minutes the roof is covered with squeaking, sprawling, protesting turkeys. As he pecks them out of his way he walks along the ridge-board to his chosen roosting place and when he finally reaches it he stretches his neck arrogantly while the others scramble back to the top and settle down for the night. When they have settled down the old bully settles down also with as much dignity as a dowager who has disturbed a whole seatful of music lovers at a concert or opera. You needn’t tell me that there isn’t something human about a gobbler that does such things as that.

AN ANIMATED BAROMETER

I find that we have an animated barometer on the place that is probably just as reliable as the most up-to-date scientific instrument that we could buy. It is also due to a natural instinct that must have been acquired during the long process of evolution. If we want to get a line on the weather for the following morning all we have to do is to observe the doings of our lordly turkey gobbler and his devoted spouse. In mild, settled weather they prefer to roost on the windswept ridge-board of the stable, and evidently the exposure does them no harm. They must thrive on it, for the Christmas turkey we saved when the others were sold habitually slept on the roof, but when she came to the table she proved to be the tenderest and fattest ever. They seem to choose a windswept roost by preference, and with their heads tucked under their wings, they come through all right when a hen or rooster would have a frozen comb.

But when a cold snap is coming, or a severe storm, the turkeys go to the hen house and roost with the hens. Some instinct makes them seek shelter when there is nothing that an ordinary human being can notice that indicates a change. And the gobbler goes to roost in a way that never fails to attract attention. He waits until all the hens are settled for the night and then proceeds to prepare for the night in a way that is worthy of the ex-Kaiser—of whom he reminds us by his autocratic habits. The roosts in the hen house are arranged like a wide ladder, sloping from the floor to the roof. When the gobbler makes up his mind that it is time to retire he hops up on the lowest roosts at the end nearest the door. Instead of settling down on his wishbone and apologizing to the hens for intruding on their quarters, he promptly starts to shuffle along the roost, pecking at the hens with his strong beak until he drives them squawking to the floor. As soon as he reaches the far end of the roost he steps up to the next one and works his way to the other end, knocking off the hens in the same way. In this way he works up to the top roost and does not stop until he has driven off every hen. Having made all the hens thoroughly uncomfortable, he settles down for the night and allows them to clamber back, though they all keep at a respectful distance from him. When we hear the racket going on in the hen house we know that we are due to have an uncomfortable change in the weather before morning, no matter how fair it may look. It is a signal that doors and windows about the buildings must be closed. So, although the gobbler is something of a nuisance on account of the way he treats the hens, he has a distinct value as a barometer.

ROUNDING UP THE TURKEYS

The turkeys in Appin district are not wild, but their owners are. This is the season of the annual round-up, and if it were not that Canadians are a peaceable and law-abiding people the results might be disastrous. The confusion is equal to that of a round-up of wild cattle in Texas in the old evil days. Flocks are inextricably mixed. It is true that some of the tough, stringy old gobblers and hens are marked with bits of gaudy rags tied on their wings, but the young, plump, edible birds are unbranded. Hence the confusion and heart-burnings.

Turkeys are native here, and they do not seem to understand that the world has become civilized since the time when their ancestors roamed through the woods in mighty flocks. They are the only important survivors of the wild life of other days, and they still retain many of their wild instincts. Although they are hatched out in the barns or poultry houses, they take to the woods as soon as they have the use of their legs, and live the wild life until full grown.

The great trouble is that they are unable to understand property rights in land. Line fences mean nothing to them, and they will range wherever food is plentiful. Flocks sometimes wander miles from home in quest of grasshoppers in the summer-time, and of beech nuts in the fall. While the weather is mild the flocks keep apart, but when a cold snap comes on they rush together, and then the trouble begins.

“My turkeys were hatched early in June,” says one farmer’s wife.

Sixty gobblers gobble together as at a signal, while an equal number of hens stretch their necks and look worried.

“Mine were July birds, but they are of a big breed, and fast growers.” The gobblers comment on this statement with a clamorous, simultaneous gobble.

“Mine were July birds, too, but I fed them on oatmeal for a couple of weeks, and that gave them a good start.” Once more the gobblers in convention assembled gobble furiously.

Here you have all the elements of a neighbourhood row. Each woman is convinced in her own soul that all the really big turkeys belong to her by rights, and that the runts that have pulled through an attack of roup or blackhead belong to someone else.

“When my hens were setting I noticed that all their eggs were sharp-pointed, and I’ve heard it said that gobblers always hatch out of that kind.” After this remark the gobblers gobbled their worst. They seem to have a mania for gobbling after every remark made by people who are viewing them. At the same time the other two women sniffed, for they knew just what the remark about sharp-pointed eggs and gobblers means. It means that the speaker thinks she should come out of the round-up with a flock wholly composed of gobblers. They would like to do the same, but it is manifestly impossible. There are fully fifty hens, and they must belong to somebody.

At last, in desperation, it is suggested that each owner drive out her own marked old hens and turkeys and see if the young ones will follow their parents. Only people who have tried to drive turkeys know what this means. Make a pass at a gobbler with a switch and he sidesteps out of range. Then he stands to await further developments. As no two turkeys by any possibility sidestep in the same direction, the progress that can be made in driving them is evident. It is asserted on good authority that the more people know about turkeys the better they like geese.

In order to facilitate the division of the flocks the owners make wild rushes at them, each trying to cut out towards her own nucleus the finest-looking birds. Full of a sense of the wrongs they are enduring, they keep at it until each has the number of birds in her original flock. Then each makes her way home to tell her husband how she was imposed upon and cheated, and each vows she will never speak to either of her greedy and overreaching neighbours as long as she lives—no, never.

The turkeys are then fed on grain for a few days and rushed to the Christmas market. The only good turkey is a dead one, but it is so very good that much may be forgiven.

THE PRODIGAL’S RETURN

We were starting to town to have the children’s photograph taken for Christmas when someone shouted: “Look at the turkeys!”

Sure enough the turkeys were coming home. All fall they have been living in a coop at the woods where they could have plenty of territory to range over and live the semi-wild life in which they thrive best. They were so placed that they could forage in the woods or steal from the cornfield, besides getting their regular rations, and life for them was one grand sweet song. Every time the gobblers gobbled they did it so lustily that those who heard involuntarily murmured “Merry Christmas!” They had not visited the home buildings since being put at the woods, but now they were coming all together as fast as they could run. First, they would run a little to the left, then a little to the right, like the merry villagers approaching the front of the stage in a musical comedy. You would almost imagine that they were dodging between invisible trees. When they reached the barnyard the gobblers all gobbled and gave every evidence of being glad to be home again. We might have suspected that there was something going to happen when the turkeys acted in this way, but, being mere human beings depending on reasons for guidance instead of instinct, we bundled ourselves into the buggy and went to town.

Having photographs taken, like everything else in this progressive age, has become a commonplace affair. We went about it without any more excitement than if we were buying groceries. After the group was placed, not posed—for it is no longer necessary to take a fixed position and hold it for a time exposure until all the feeling of a human being leaves one—the photographer squeezed a little rubber bulb, the shutter clicked, and the operation was over. Of course, there was the little matter of father getting down on all fours in a far corner of the studio and making believe that he was a bear so as to make the serious-minded baby smile, but we will not go into that. Still, it was a task requiring considerable artistic skill. The acting had to be finely shaded, with just enough realism to make the baby smile without making the older children laugh. While I have never set much store by my histrionic abilities, I venture to think that if the critics had seen my performance they would have given me press notices that would be worth preserving. As it was there were those present who mourned because they could not get a snapshot of me in that character. I think I played the bear just about as well as Bully Bottom would have played the lion. I roared as gently as a sucking dove. As I have suggested, the act was very brief, and perhaps that was as well. I might not have been able to sustain the character for any length of time. I couldn’t help remembering how different it was the first time I “had my picture took.” I had a new home-made suit of which I felt duly proud and somehow got the necessary funds to have a tintype taken. I was placed in the most awkward position I have ever been in, and under the orders of the photographer I gazed steadily at a feather duster until the tears came into my eyes while he held his watch and counted like the referee at a prize-fight. Years afterwards it took two strong men to hold me when that tintype was brought out for the edification of a mixed company.

When we came out of the photographer’s we realized what had ailed the turkeys. The snow storm of the season was in progress. A strong wind was blowing from the east and driving the big flakes before it. It would have been an interesting sight if it were not that we were over three miles from home and would have to face it all the way. There was nothing to do, however, but to pile into the buggy and start for home. There were no woods anywhere to break the force of the storm, and soon we were all as white as Santa Claus. The children began to get cold, and father—oh, well, it was a trying situation. There seemed to be twice as many people in the buggy as when we were going down, but now that I think it over in a serene frame of mind I can see that nothing makes cramped quarters seem so overcrowded as a little touch of temper. Of course we got home safely, though cold and storm-beaten, and we finally got thawed out. Hereafter when the turkeys begin to act up in an unusual way I shall stay at home to see what happens. The ancients used to foretell the success of journeys by the flight of birds and I am inclined to think that there may have been something in it. Those turkeys certainly seemed to know that our journey would be made uncomfortable by a storm.

SOCRATES

For the past hour I have seen, smelt, and felt more of Socrates, the wise ram, than I really wanted to. We had to put a new tongue in the disc harrow, and it had been hauled into the pasture field for that purpose. Socrates was with the sheep and lambs under a shade tree about twenty rods away when we began the job, and at once decided to investigate. He did not want to bunt anyone, but he was just as curious as one of the children to see how everything was done. He crowded into the circle that was busy boring holes in the tongue and adjusting bolts. At times there were as many as five heads touching one another when a difficult bolt was being wrestled with, and the head of Socrates was often the nearest to it. He certainly was curious about everything. It was useless to drive him away, for he would come right back at once. Sometimes it was rather startling to raise one’s head when the wrench had slipped to find that the head nearest was that of Socrates. And, besides smelling like a wool warehouse, he radiated heat like a furnace. But we had to put up with him until the job was done. When not crowding into the busy circle—or rather into the circle where one was busy and the rest were looking on—he amused himself by picking up bolts and nuts in his mouth, and once or twice was suspected of swallowing them, but, as they all turned up when hunted for, he was not guilty. Possibly he learned something by watching so closely while the work was being done, but that did not make him any the less a nuisance.

VAIN REGRETS

If it were not for John Milton I might today have a bank account that would outshine “the wealth of Ormuz or of Ind.” Just listen to this piece of foolishness that I have been cherishing all these years:

You couldn’t expect me to go in for sheep-raising while giving that quotation a place of honour in my memory, could you? The boys, not caring for poetry, and caring much for the practical bulletins, obtained my permission to go in for sheep-raising. Remembering the kind of sheep we had when I was a boy, I thought they wouldn’t be much trouble, as they would pasture most of the time with the neighbours anyway. But the boys didn’t go in for that kind. They got purebred registered sheep, and started under the best auspices, with a little flock that was partly bought and partly taken on shares. I admired the addition to the farm livestock, but did not get excited. These quiet, plump sheep did not seem to promise adventure of any kind. The sheep I used to know were more like Ancient Pistol’s “damned and luxurious mountain goat” than they were like these pampered pets of the show ring. Of course, I recorded the arrival of Mary Belle and Clarissa and Strafe, and told something about their doings, but felt no inclination to take up “the homely, slighted shepherd’s trade.” And now see what has happened. Last week a buyer of fancy sheep came along, gave the flock the once over, and then bought Mary Belle. When they told me the price he was paying, my wrath against John Milton boiled over. “Slighted shepherd’s trade,” indeed! That buyer paid sixty-five dollars for Mary Belle! You could have bought a whole flock of the sheep I used to know for that price. Why, O why, didn’t I go in for sheep when I came back to the land?

THE FIRST LAMB

In spite of the persistent cold weather there has been enough excitement on the farm to send up the temperature several degrees. One day last week, when the mercury was sulking at zero, three lambs arrived on the place. Alas only one survived, in spite of tender care and the best advice of all the experienced sheep-raisers in the neighbourhood. One died at once and another followed a few hours later, though it was carefully fed and tucked in a warm nest beside the kitchen stove. The mother sheep could not be induced to take any interest in the weakling. One of her lambs was strong and vigorous, and to it she gave her whole care, seeming to know by instinct that nothing could save the others. And it is doubtful if she could have saved the one we have if we had not shared the cares of motherhood with her. At nightfall the thermometer went down and down until it reached 12° below, and the new lamb began to lose interest in this cold world. The frost penetrated to the snug box-stall, and the poor little lamb shivered and refused to pay attention to its mother. She pawed at it to make it get up, but it couldn’t get on its feet. So we wrapped it in a horse blanket and took it to the nest beside the stove. For the next couple of days we kept it warm and carried it to its mother for brief visits at meal times. In that way we kept it from being chilled to death, and now that the weather has moderated it is living with its mother and being much admired. But I am afraid that some of the interest taken in it is rather sordid. When the excitement was at its highest I found a boy studying the market reports. He was looking up the price of wool.

THE SPEED HOUND

It is just as great a mistake to name animals when they are small and attractive as it is to give a name such as Patience, Charity, or Samson, to children and expect them to grow up to it. Patience may grow up to be a termagant, Charity to be a skinflint, and Samson to be a weakling. I often think that people should have a chance to take new names when they grow up—names more appropriate to their development. Of course, this need is supplied by nicknames that are sometimes keenly descriptive, but that does not exactly meet the situation. It lacks dignity. But it was not on the general question of names that I started to write.

When we added a sow to our family livestock this spring the children named her Peggy. As she was still young enough to have some of the endearing characteristics of youth, the name seemed to fit her. But you should see her now. And also you should listen to her. All the graces are gone. Since those early days she has raised a family, and now that the little pigs have been weaned she is simply a free-ranging old sow of singular offensiveness. The boys who named her affectionately in the spring have renamed her. They now call her the Speed Hound. And the name seems to fit. She doesn’t carry an ounce of superfluous flesh and her footwork is a marvel of reach and speed. She can come nearer than anything I ever saw to being in two places at the same time. For instance, if one boy is feeding the calves at the orchard gate and another opens the stable door to get some chicken feed from the bin she can be a nuisance to both at the same time. And if an apple falls in the orchard while she is vibrating back and forth between the calves and the grain bin, she can make a detour to get it and not be missed from either place. And all the time she is squalling at the top of her lungs and libelling us to the whole neighbourhood. To hear her you would think that we are starving her to death, while the whole trouble is due to a difference of ambitions. We are ambitious to have her live with us for another year as part of our bacon-producing outfit, while her ambition is to pile about three hundred pounds of extra fat on her carcass in the course of the next few months. Owing to this difference of opinion she is limited to a daily ration that will keep her in sound health and good condition. As she has been eating for herself and her family for some weeks her appetite is at its highest development and she refuses to be satisfied. And there is nothing in this ravenous brute that reminds one of the cunning little ways of Peggy. Why, I remember recording the fact that Peggy was so shy when she first came that she would not eat if anyone was looking at her. Now she doesn’t care who sees her. She not only eats her chop feed and swill in the open without any thought of table manners, but would even eat the pail in which her ration is carried if it were not taken away. Instead of being a cunning little pig she is now a perambulating pest with a long, straight tail that is utterly devoid of the customary affable curl.

PIGS IN CLOVER

This morning it was decided that the twelve little pigs should be turned into a patch of luxuriant red clover to give them the necessary supply of vitamins and take the edge off their appetites. One boy thought he could attend to the chore by himself, for the clover field was just the spot that the pigs might be expected to make for if they broke loose from the close-cropped pasture of the orchard. Five minutes later he was yelling for help. The twelve little lumps of frisky stubbornness had slipped through a wire fence into the cornfield, and were snapping off hills of corn at every jump. Help went to him on the run, and an attempt was made to drive the pigs across the government drain into the clover. Although there is only a trickle of water in the drain, they’d “a-liefer die” than cross it. They seemed afraid of their lives of getting their feet wet. Time after time they were rounded up, but every attempt to rush them across ended up in a wild scattering. At last they were driven to a spot where there are no banks on the drain, and were driven over, two or three at a time. When they finally landed in the clover field, where they almost disappeared among the young blossoms and juicy leaves, it was thought that they would be satisfied, and the boy who was to watch them sat down on the bank of the government drain to indulge in a nature study of the pollywogs in a puddle. A few minutes later he was yelling for help again. The pigs had left the clover and had wandered into the adjoining pasture field. They were as hard to keep within bounds as the grains of shot in a “pigs-in-clover” puzzle. Probably that puzzle was invented by someone who had tried to pasture pigs in a field of clover. It would seem that they have no taste for clover, except when they have a chance to steal it. To add to the trouble, the cry went up that the Speed Hound was in the oat field. Evidently when she saw her family out of bounds she decided to break loose herself. In consequence the whole troublesome family had to be rounded up in the orchard again, where they have nothing to do but to squeal around and wait for their rations of swill and chop feed.

A DEFENCE OF THE PIG

There are eight little pigs in one pen, little white beauties, and from time to time it falls to my lot to feed them. I always undertake the task cheerfully, because I like to look at them. They are still at the tender age of the little pigs we sometimes see in restaurant windows with apples in their mouths and their vests unbuttoned. Not one of them but deserves the description of Charles Lamb: “I speak not of your grown porkers—things between pig and pork—those hobbledehoys—but a young and tender suckling—guiltless as yet of the sty; his childish voice as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble and a grumble—the mild forerunner, or præludium of a grunt.”

When I went to visit them this morning, they were all lying in the sun, in the little plot of pasture that has been fenced off for them. I did not blame them in the least for their indolence, for these are the days when everybody loves to lie in the sunshine, though, of course, it is a dreadful waste of time, except on Sunday afternoons, after church. I approached them quietly, and while I stood admiring their white plumpness, delicately touched with pink, I was glad to notice that Mother Goose was a true observer. She sang joyously:

Their eight little tails were twisted into eight curls so tight that I felt sure another twist would have lifted their hind feet off the ground. An unguarded step roused them, and then what excitement there was. Eight little voices were at once raised in protest at my slowness. Carefully spilling a little of the skim-milk mash into one end of the trough, I stepped back hastily and distributed the remainder evenly along the rest of it. The taste I had given them, however, was enough to get them all into action and reveal their characters. Really, one can’t help liking little pigs. They are so human. For a moment I imagined myself a Professor Garner, and felt that I understood their language.

Some day I hope to have the leisure to write an adequate “Defence of the Pig.” Now that Judge Jeffreys and Nero have been whitewashed and given good-conduct cards by the historians, I think that someone should speak a good word for the pigs. They have been very much maligned. And perhaps this is the right time to do it—after the pigs, both live and dressed—have been dragged through the mire of politics. To begin with, the pig is no more gross in his appetite than that much applauded “tame villatick fowl,” the hen. As for cleanliness, give him a chance, and see how clean he can be. His dirtiness is due to the people who pen him up so that he can hardly stir. “Seek other cause ’gainst Rhoderick Dhu!” Then, consider how important the work of the pig has been in the making of Canada. He deserves a place in the gallery of the Makers of Canada, because the pioneers would have had a much harder time of it had they not been supported by plentiful supplies of fat pork. If the pig had his rights, he would be our national emblem, instead of the beaver. What has the beaver done for us, anyway? The pig, on the other hand, sustained our fathers in their fight against the wilderness, and yet his name is a name of scorn. Even the poets, in whom fair play is intuitive, have done scant justice to the pig. As a matter of fact, I can recall only one bit of poetry about the pig in Canadian literature, and that is McIntyre’s epigram “On a hog exhibited at the Western Fair, which weighed 1000 pounds, and measured five-foot-nine from tip to tip”:

BEATRICE

When Beatrice arrived she was put in the pen in which we kept the two pigs that we fattened for home-cured pickled pork and bacon, but it didn’t seem to give her a chance for sufficient exercise, so we decided to shift around the pigpen so that it would give her an entrance to the barnyard. Since that has been done there has been nothing but trouble. Not a door or gate can be left open for a moment, or the marauding Beatrice will be in mischief. As a matter of fact, she no sooner got access to the barnyard than she deserted the pigpen altogether. Although her sleeping room was filled with nice clean straw, she wouldn’t look at it. Instead, she began to root around the straw stack and to gather a big pile of loose straw on the south side. She chose the side that was sheltered from the prevailing northwest wind, and constructed a nest that is entirely to her own taste. When she gives up hope of getting any more food each day she burrows her way into her pile of straw and tucks it around her like a blanket. When I go to the barnyard after night I can hear her grunting rhythmically under about four feet of straw.

Of course it is a nuisance to have Beatrice and her family at large in the barnyard, but the world must have bacon, even if we are not properly equipped for hog-raising. All gates and doors must be kept closed at all times or there is sure to be trouble. Still, her alert presence disciplines us to tidiness and occasionally develops a bit of comedy. Yesterday morning I arrived at the barnyard just in time to witness an exciting little scene. The boy who looks after the hens had neglected to take a pail with him when he went to the granary for chicken feed, and thought he could carry it safely in a straw hat. With his hatful of oats he turned to close the latch on the granary door, and Beatrice saw her chance. With a quick rush she grabbed the hat by the crown. The boy turned with a yell, but he was too late. For a couple of seconds there was a tug-of-war—pull boy, pull pig, and then the hat tore apart. The boy had the brim and Beatrice had the crown with its load of oats. Holding her head aloft, as pigs do when trying to escape with some titbit, she held up the crown of the hat and rushed into her pen. She didn’t spill a grain and had a good feed all to herself in a dark corner. The boy’s first impulse was to cry, but when he saw me he began to scold about having Beatrice loose in the barnyard. The joke was spoiled for me later in the day when I found that it was my cow-breakfast hat that had provided the sow breakfast. The boy had worn it by mistake.

PROPHETIC PIGS

When it comes to predicting weather for the country, the weather bureau people are not entirely satisfactory. Their prophesies lack scope and daring. They seldom venture to predict the weather for more than a few hours, and at the best their calculations are being upset all the time by insurgent weather from across the line. Not so with those who preside wisely at a pig-killing. We who look into the future through the medium of a pig’s milt are permitted to use our imagination and to send searching glances into the dark forward and abysm of time that lifts the veil for months to come. I have examined the milt of the pig that we killed, and now with all the gravity of a Roman augur I am prepared to state without fear of immediate contradiction that the first half of the winter will be much more severe than the latter half. The end of the milt (known to scientists as the spleen) that lies nearest to the head of the animal is larger than the other end this year. From this we know that the weather during the first few months will be heavy with snow storms, blizzards, and sudden frosts. Also because the milt as a whole was thin, the winter as a whole will not be severe. Scientists and city men may laugh at this as a vulgar superstition, but I live in a part of the world where potatoes are planted according to the moon, and far be it from me to say anything that might unsettle public opinion or bring down on me the wrath of those who are versed in learning of this kind. Still, as the spleen in old-time medical practice was regarded as the seat of the emotions, and especially bad temper, I confess that I would rather try to predict the political situations from it than the weather. But what “is writ is writ,” and if the weather does not turn out accordingly I refuse to be held responsible. The coldest weather is sure to come in one half of the winter or the other, so there is an even chance the prediction will turn out right.

There are some men who get more satisfaction out of their ignorance than most learned men get out of their knowledge.

MEDITATIVE COWS

I used to wonder why our nature writers never write stories about the common domestic cow. She is certainly of more importance than wild animals, and yet she seldom figures in literature except in the herd book and in market reports. I say this used to puzzle me, but it puzzles me no longer. Charles G. D. Roberts and Thompson Seton and Kipling can tell us the secret thoughts of wolves and bears and tigers and crocodiles and such critters just as easy as easy, but cows are beyond them. Cows are deep. They think thoughts that are beyond the poets. You can’t fool me about cows, because I am living with them just now. Acting as valet to a bunch of cows and young cattle has given me a chance to study them closely, and my respect for them is increasing every day. Cows certainly think, but only when they have the proper environment. They don’t think all over the place like college professors and eminent people generally. It has always been very disconcerting to me to meet great men on the street, or in the railway station, or on the crowded rear platform of a streetcar, and to find them thinking all the time. They seem to have developed thinking into a bad habit, but not so with cows. Cows can spend days and days without thinking, but when the conditions are right they think unutterable things. And they are very human in this. A well-known writer told me once that he can never think freely unless he begins by thinking about a telegraph pole. He couldn’t explain why it was, but if he once got his mind completely concentrated on a telegraph pole ideas would at once come surging into his brain. It is the same with cows and the object that inspires them to their loftiest flights is a gate. Let no one be surprised at this. Even philosophers have mighty things to say about gates. What says Omar?

Fate—there you have it. Fate is undoubtedly the favourite subject of thought with meditative cows. You have only to look at them and notice their awful solemnity and the gravity of their mild and magnificent eyes to know that they are not thinking of any ordinary matter like the beef trust, or the high cost of hay, or anything of that sort. But it is not enough to have a cow see a gate to start her thinking. You must try to drive her through it. In fact, I am not sure that one lone cow would start thinking even in a gate. You must have a herd of them and it usually works out in about this way. After you have run yourself out of breath gathering the herd the boss will take the lead and the skittish young cattle will be bringing up the rear. As soon as the boss gets into the gate where none of the others can pass her a great idea will strike her and she will stop to chew her cud and think it over.

But gates are not the only things that inspire cows. Doors also seem to have a very stimulating effect on their cerebral processes. Sometimes when I turn the cows out to water I just go down the line unloosing their chains. When the first cow reaches the door and gets a glimpse of the fair round world, she stops to reflect on its beauty. The cows behind her, lacking this inspiration, begin to hook and bunt one another until the stable is a howling pandemonium, but the cow in the door is in no wise disturbed. She stands there and thinks, and thinks, and thinks. As for me, well—perhaps I hadn’t better tell what I am thinking and saying. As a rule, before I am too severely trampled I manage to get hold of a fork and break the reverie of the thinker in the doorway. In my opinion Rodin missed a great opportunity when sculpturing “The Thinker.” He should have hewn a cow out of marble rather than a man who looks like G. Bernard Shaw. When it comes to real thinking, give me a cow. I suspect that she gets as far with her problems as the best thinker of us all.

ERRANT COWS

A couple of weeks ago, the red cow and her yearling got on the road and started off to see the world. Of course, it was the wettest day of the season, but that didn’t matter. I had to hitch up and hunt for them. It was then I realized for the first time how complex is our system of roads. Within a radius of two miles, there were no less than eighteen turns they might have taken. If they went farther than that, the roads that might invite them were almost beyond computation. I hadn’t the faintest hint of the direction they had taken, and the search was bewildering. I splashed through the rain around a couple of blocks, stopping at every farm-house that was near the road to ask if anyone had been pestered by a red cow and a yearling that were cheeky enough to go on the front lawn without wiping their feet, and that wouldn’t hesitate to help themselves from the swill barrel. No one had seen them. I also questioned everyone who was fool enough to be out on the road in such weather, but could get no trace of them. At last, when I was about to give up in despair, and was thinking of advertising in the “Lost, Strayed, or Stolen” column of the local paper, I remembered that on the previous night I had dreamed of an old schoolmate who was living a couple of miles away. Possibly that was an omen. Anyway, I couldn’t think of anything better to do, so I headed in that direction. Sure enough, I found the cow and her yearling. She was in the field, and the yearling on the road. How she got into the field I cannot imagine, for it was well-fenced, and I had to let the fence down to the last rail before I could get her out. She probably found some spot where she poked through with her usual impudence. Of course, I don’t want to put myself on record as believing that the dream had anything to do with my finding the cow. All I want to point out is that when a cow has gone astray, a dream is just as likely to lead you to her as anything else. But I am not going to act as if I had found an infallible method of finding a stray cow. No indeed. Instead of doing that I shall fix the fence where she got out.

A NIGHT SESSION

The cattle seem to suffer from insomnia occasionally, and the hot nights rouse their predatory instincts. Last night as I was gasping on the floor beside a screen door I heard something stirring on the lawn. Glancing out I saw one of the calves investigating a bed of poppies as if meditating a dose of laudanum to induce sleepfulness. Further investigation found all the cattle and the horses in the orchard. Dressing lightly and hurriedly, I called Sheppy and started to drive them out. For almost an hour we raged around the orchard and the buildings before we got the brutes back into the pasture. I found that the pasture gate was open and at once jumped to the conclusion that the boy who put out the cows after milking had left it open. While running around in the moonlight and under the shadows of the apple trees, getting tripped by furrows and switched in the face by branches, I thought of a number of interesting things to say to the boy about his carelessness. At first I intended to waken him and tell them to him while they were fresh in my mind, but when I got a drink of cold water at the well I thought better of it and decided to let the matter rest until morning. The evidence was all against him, for he was the last one through the gate, and as the gate was a new hardware-store gate of steel tubing and wire, with a regulation catch, I felt sure it couldn’t have come open accidentally. But it was just as well that I decided to let things stand over until morning. About three o’clock, when I was again snoozing fitfully on my sofa pillow by the door, Sheppy began to bark and a cow rushed past. They were in again. Without waiting to dress I joined Sheppy, and we took the Kneipp cure together while rounding up the cows and getting them back into the pasture. The new hardware-store gate was open again, and my thoughts shifted to the hardware man. I pictured myself leaning over the counter and saying things to him about that gate and the fastenings on it. Yet that would hardly do. He did not make the gate; and, anyway, it was of the kind used by all other farmers. The real trouble was with the gifted red cow and her unhallowed progeny. I knew from experience that if there was any way of getting into mischief they would know it. The gate fastenings that were good enough for listless and pampered purebred cows were no defence against their enterprising energy. So if anyone was to blame for the night’s trouble it was myself—for owning that particular strain of cows.

THAT COW-POKE

A couple of weeks ago I thought I had discovered the perfect cow-poke, with full details for its manufacture. It was guaranteed not only to keep a cow within bounds, but also to defy all attempts to slip or shake it off. Quite so. Our bovine Houdini wore this new all-conquering poke for five days and behaved with becoming meekness. But she was simply studying out its working and figuring how to beat it. Then she got rid of her poke and went off to see the world. She not only got rid of it, but she hid it. She must have carried it to the woodlot and buried it by pawing leaves over it. Or she took it to the pond and dropped it in, and the chain that was a part of its make-up was heavy enough to carry it to the bottom. Or, perhaps, she ate it. Anyway, the poke is gone—disappeared—non est. A boy and I ranged over about fifty acres as carefully as a couple of beagles without finding a trace of it. The more I think of it the more I am inclined to believe that she ate the poke. That cow is capable of anything. When she was rid of it she decided to visit a herd of cattle on a neighbouring farm, and went through, or under, three fences to get to them. I followed her spoor when hunting for the poke, and, as nearly as I could figure it out, she got by one of the fences by lying down on her side and wriggling under it like a dog. Oh, that cow is a wonder! When I found her among the neighbour’s cows, I took much satisfaction in noting that all the bigger cows were taking turns in beating her up. When I rescued her I didn’t do a thing to her. She walked home meekly through gates that I opened for her, and I trailed along behind making a mental review of all kinds of neckwear, from the prehistoric torc to summer furs—not omitting the Dahomeyan slave fork. But I could not remember anything that suggested an improvement on the poke I had been using. Houdini was put in her stall in the stable while I made a new poke.

COW TROUBLES

Say, what do you do when a cow swallows a rubber ball? I don’t mean one of the hollow kind, but a solid rubber ball about the size of a small Ben Davis apple—one of the kind that used to sting our fingers when we played Long Injun with them at the old school. I hadn’t seen one for years, but this spring an old one was ploughed up in one of the fields, and as it still retained its shape and would bounce the children used it to play with. Well, last night one of the boys went to bring up the cows, and when a cow strayed apart from the bunch and stood still he threw the ball at her. He missed her, but as the ball rolled past she ran after it and grabbed it, apparently under the impression that it was an apple or a potato, or something good to eat. I was in the stable when the boy came to tell me about it as a great joke, and I was inclined to think that the joke was on him, for I felt sure that as soon as the cow found that she had been fooled she would drop the ball. But when I went out to the gate to let in the cows I found Beans, granddaughter of old Fenceviewer, with her head and neck stretched out, doing her best to chew and swallow something that was stuck in her throat. She was half choked, for her eyes were popping out, and she was red in the face—or at least had the same expression that a human being has when red in the face. With my customary presence of mind I rushed to her side and began to slap her on the back the same as we do to the children when they choke on something or when something goes down the wrong way. But it did no good, and the slapping made her bolt to her stall in the stable. I immediately began to feel her throat, and was not long in discovering a lump that seemed about the size of the missing rubber ball. I then followed my usual practice when in real trouble. I sent for a neighbour.

By the time my neighbour had arrived the cow had stopped her frantic swallowing, and I had become suspicious that the lump I had been feeling in her throat was not a lodged rubber ball, but the end of her windpipe. My neighbour confirmed this suspicion, but he could not suggest what I should do under the circumstances. That is the trouble with my cattle. They are all the time doing things that are outside of the common fund of experience. Other people’s cattle seem to confine themselves to ailments that can be treated according to recipes given in the Veterinary Guide, or in the back numbers of the farm papers, but mine are all the time doing something unexpected. Still, I got a line on what was an entirely new wrinkle to me. A person of experience brought me a beetle ring and told me that the way to dislodge a substance from a cow’s throat was to open her mouth and keep it open with the beetle ring. Then I could slip my hand through the ring and remove the obstruction with my fingers, or take a piece of rubber hose and poke it down her throat. That sounds to me like a very plausible method, but as the little cow had stopped gagging and had commenced chewing her cud, it was considered unnecessary to try the operation. And speaking of her cud—she should not be in any danger of losing her cud in the near future. That rubber ball should provide her with just about the most serviceable cud that a cow ever had. Whenever the pasture gets short she can bring up her reserve rubber cud and keep herself contented with it until the pasture grows.

Seeing that most of our young people seem to find it necessary to provide themselves with cuds of durable, rubbery gum on which they chew during most of their waking hours, isn’t it just possible that our cows would be more contented and give more milk if we provided them with rubber cuds? If I could only get scientific endorsement for the scheme I would have no trouble in promoting a company to supply rubber cuds for cows. Anyway, Beans seems to have suffered no inconvenience from having swallowed that indurated knob of gutta-percha. When I was driving her back to the field after milking she hastily picked up a nice clean corn-cob and put it down as dessert to the rubber ball—all of which leads me to believe that she inherits her grandmother’s digestion as well as her appetite. I am willing to bet that a post mortem on Fenceviewer would reveal a collection of junk that would give impaction of the rumen to an ostrich. Still, if any authority on cows thinks that having a rubber ball in her midst may be injurious to Beans, I wish he would write and tell me what I should do.

OLD GLUTTONY

Is there such a thing as an official scorecard for marking up the points of a cow? If there is I should like to see one. I want to know just how many marks are given for powers of digestion. This week the red cow did something that almost lifts her out of the cow class and places her with the ostrich and boa constrictor. The other day after the cows had been turned out to water she was somehow left untied. True to her predatory instincts, as soon as she discovered her freedom she started to nose around for something she could steal and had the luck to find a tub full of corn in the ear, from which the hens were being fed. She promptly began to wrap herself around it and before being interrupted in her feast she had eaten over a bushel. Now, The Farmer’s Advocate has never published any “First Aid to the Gluttonous,” and I didn’t know what to do. When I asked for advice people told me sad stories of the death of cows from overfeeding. Some had been killed by eating tailings after a threshing, others by bloating after eating clover, others by a surfeit of chop feed. It was all very disheartening for a fresh cow that gives eight quarts of milk rich in butterfat at each milking is a valuable asset in these days when the bank act is being revised so as to allow farmers to raise money on their cattle. I couldn’t call up the veterinarian for we have no telephone, and with the roads in their present condition I did not feel like driving three miles to consult one. Still I was not so much worried as I might have been. The look in her eye was reassuring. She looked more like the cat that had eaten the canary than anything else. She wore an air of unmistakable satisfaction and when she began to eat some clover hay that was in her manger as dessert to her banquet I felt that she might pull through. Her previous raids on the swill barrel, soft soap, apples, and other things gave me confidence in her powers of digestion, so, after murmuring a few words, “more in sorrow than in anger,” I gave her Shakespeare’s blessing—“Let good digestion wait on appetite”—and left her to her fate.

At milking time she was still perfectly normal though kind of lazy about standing over and “histing.” Acting on advice, I cut out her evening ration of unthreshed oats, so that her stomach would recover from the surprise she had given it in the afternoon. Her gastric juices had their work cut out for them without having their troubles increased. But she made no protest when the other cows were fed and she was skipped. In fact she reminded me of the bereaved fowl described by Pet Marjory, the little girl whose rhymes and sayings were recorded by Sir Walter Scott:

And yet, though she was in such good form I couldn’t keep from worrying. All evening I listened to tales about cows that had come to untimely ends through over-eating, and look at it in any way I tried, a bushel or more of corn seemed a big dose for any cow. So after the others had gone to bed I lit the lantern and went out to the stable to see how she was doing. As I opened the door she heaved a sigh of repletion, like an alderman after a banquet. Then she stretched out her neck, brought up a cud, and began to chew placidly. Still, I was not entirely easy in my mind. If I could only get to see her tongue, or to feel her pulse, or take her temperature, I would be more satisfied. But how to get her to put out her tongue was the problem. The only way I could think of would be to hold an ear of corn before her nose and let her reach out her tongue for it, just as I had seen her try to lick grain through a knot-hole in the granary. But I was afraid to try that scheme for I knew by experience that she would probably get the start of me and add that ear of corn to the pile she had already accumulated. When it came to feeling her pulse I was stumped worse than in trying to get her to put out her tongue. How do you feel a cow’s pulse anyway? The longer I live on a farm and grapple with its problems the more I find I have to learn. And all the time I was fussing and worrying she kept on contentedly chewing her cud. Restraining an impulse to give her a kick for looking so exasperatingly comfortable, when in the best judgment of the neighbourhood she should be dying, I closed the door and left her to her job of digesting a bushel of corn. And she did it to the king’s taste. In the morning I went to see her before I gathered the duck eggs and found her bawling for her morning feed. She never batted an eyelid—never turned a hair. And at milking time she gave a brimming pail of milk, just as if nothing unusual had happened. Later in the day, when she was turned out for water, she bolted for the spot where she had found the corn on the previous day and seemed ready to repeat her exploit. It is not because she is starved either, for she is beef-fat.

MUNGO

Besides being a general nuisance, Mungo, the yearling steer, is a philosopher. When he was at large he considered himself master of the farm and helped himself. Fences meant nothing to him. He could bend down new ones as well as break old ones. Even a barbed wire along the top made no difference. He was smooth enough to overcome that difficulty. So it gradually became evident that we must fatten Mungo for Easter beef or arrange to put new fences on the farm in the spring. I thought that when this freedom-loving nuisance came to be tied in a stall there would be trouble. But I was entirely wrong. The philosophical side of his nature developed at once. Being tied up, he realized that he must be waited on, and settled down to take life easy. In fact, he lies down and never gets up except when he is indignantly kicked or poked up because he must go out to get a drink or to have his stall bedded. When not disturbed he eats his meals lying down. He doesn’t care much for corn stalks. Good alfalfa hay suits him, and mangels and chopped feed. He will lie and munch as long as they are before him. Of course, he eats standing up at times. But that is because when he has been forced to get up he is too lazy to lie down again. Let no one imagine that his laziness is due to some ailment. He is a picture of health. Juno would be flattered to have her eyes compared with his, and his hair is getting sleek and glossy. If he keeps on laying on fat he will make a decent showing in the Easter beef market, but in the meantime he is not letting anything worry him. I cannot remember when I have heard him bawling as if he wanted anything. A full manger and a wide stall in which to sprawl at ease is his ideal of life.

DOLLY’S DAY OFF

I wonder if any scientist has figured out the exact properties of blue grass. I don’t remember seeing anything on the subject, but I am going to look it up, for blue grass hay seems to have food qualities that are not suspected by ordinary farmers. Besides being hay it must have the protein content, fat, starch and all other things that are to be found in a ration of alfalfa, rolled oats, oilcake and condition powders. It seems to be as potent as that brand of old English ale of which it was said that a quart contained “meat, drink and a night’s lodging.” Anyway, our dowager driver has had nothing but blue grass to eat all winter, and instead of developing that tired feeling as spring approaches she is so full of pep that she is teaching mischief to her own colts. Of course, she hasn’t had much to do this winter, having convinced us that trotting was too great a strain on her constitution, and that even walking must be indulged in cautiously and slowly. In short, she had managed by her conduct in the harness to have all the driving done by the other horse, which is a willing if rough-gaited traveller. As we couldn’t spend a whole day on the road when it became necessary to go to the village we stopped trying to use the old malingerer. And it is not that she is so old, for she isn’t. But whenever the harness was put on her back she seemed to develop sleeping sickness or some other obscure ailment, so we gave up using her except for farm work. But blue grass will out, and now we have fathomed her deep duplicity. She has simply been imposing on our good nature and there are strenuous days ahead for her.

A couple of days ago she and her colts were turned out for a run while the chores were being attended to. They seemed to enjoy their freedom and galloped around the field until they appeared to be tired. By the time the chores were done they were all standing at the barnyard gate, waiting to be let through, and I suspected nothing. When I opened the gate I reached for Dolly’s halter, but she wheeled in her tracks and let fly at me with both heels. At the same instant the two-year-old crowded up and I caught him instead. I led him to the stable door and started him in and then turned to head off his mother, who had started towards the lane. Instantly she squealed and started towards the road with the yearling at her heels. The two-year-old heard her and popped out of the stable.

A moment later the three of them were off towards the road, where the gate had been left open on account of the snowdrifts. Not suspecting anything more than an ordinary frolic, I stood by the stable and whistled for them and called, “Cob Dolly,” in my most seductive tones. But it was useless. When they reached the road they rushed north until checked by the drifts. Then they stopped, wheeled round and rushed south, passing the gate as if they had no interest in it. Before reaching the corner they slowed up. I whistled coaxingly and they stopped to look back. At this critical point a man with a horse and buggy turned the corner and started south. At once the three truants started after him, Dolly in the lead, with her tail in the air. I watched until they were almost a mile away, and then harnessed the other horse, conscripted a boy into active service and started in pursuit of the runaways. By the time we reached the road they were nowhere in sight, having turned a corner about a mile away. The chase was now on in earnest.

When we reached the corner we saw the frisky trio nosing along the road and moving slowly to the east. Approaching cautiously as near as we dared the boy started on a wide circuit through a wheat field so as to get ahead of them. To any casual observer it would appear that he was cutting across the field towards the village to the north, but Dolly is no mean tactician herself, and she was not to be fooled. Before he had time to swing towards the road she snorted defiance and galloped away, with the colts at her heels. The boy came back to the road, climbed into the buggy, and we started a stern chase. Presently the three turned in at an open gate, and hope revived. If I could only get past that gate we could head them off. But the farmer whose property they had invaded thought he would help by sicking the dog on them. I drove wildly, but it was no use. They beat me to the gate and raced along the road ahead of me.

At this point I released about seven thousand calories of language, but it didn’t help any. It merely raised my personal temperature to about one hundred and four. With tails up they galloped along until they came to a little road that cut across a gore that had been left by the original surveyors of the township. I saw a chance, and sent the boy across the fields to head them off. As the little road had rail fences on both sides it was choked with snowdrifts, so it looked as if this manœuvre would work. They stopped, and the boy climbed over the fence ahead of them. In the meantime I drove along until I had passed the little road and took up a strategic position where I could head them off and start them towards home as the boy drove them back. Alas for the vanity of human wishes! The mail carrier had let down the fence a few rods down the little road so as to avoid the drifts by crossing through a field. Dolly saw the opening and took advantage of it at once. Into the field they went.

I admit that it was a beautiful sight to see them cavort around that ploughed field. It reminded me of a passage in Mazeppa:

But I didn’t meditate on the poetry. Instead, I meditated fondly on a blacksnake whip we used to own when I was a boy. It had a weighted handle, and a long, snaky lash, and it was said that a man could draw blood with it. If I had that whip and had Dolly where I could get at her—But it was no use thinking what I would do. Dolly had seen the gap opening out of the far side of the field on to another road and she led the way to it in high fettle. I believe they would have been going yet had not a kind-hearted farmer who saw the approaching cavalcade stepped out on the road and headed them off. This enabled the boy to get ahead of them with the buggy whip. He started them towards home and I managed to get them past my corner. Then they went into a pasture field through an open gate they had missed on their outbound trip. Noticing that they were hemmed in by a sheet of slippery ice I took an ear of corn that we had brought along, and by cornering her and tempting her at the same time I managed to catch her. But I didn’t give her that ear of corn, even though I know one should never fool a horse in that way. I was afraid she might take it as a reward for her exploit.

THE COLT

When I got home from the city I found that a great event had happened. A colt had arrived, and although it was almost eleven o’clock on a cloudy night, there was great disappointment because I would not take a lantern and hunt through a fifteen-acre meadow to get a look at the little stranger. I was firm on the point, however, and denied myself the pleasure until the following morning. But we all went out to see the colt before breakfast, much to the distress of Dolly, who thought we had come to take him away and was ready to defend him with her life. She circled around him with her ears laid back, and when anyone approached too near she unlimbered her heels for action. I foresee quite a job when she must be caught and put into harness again. Considering the matter from an artistic point of view, I fail to see why she should be so proud of her offspring. At present he seems to be all neck and legs—like the chickens they use to make boarding-house fricassees. His appearance reminded me of a remark I once heard: “We shall soon have a horse, for we already have the frame up.” And besides being all legs, his legs are all joints. Still, “he has his mother’s eyes,” and I suppose that makes up for everything else. Real farmers who have looked at him say that he is the makings of a fine horse, and they have seen lots of colts at his age that were more gangling and wobbly. Just now there is a fierce discussion raging as to what he shall be named, but there is a strong probability that he will be called Brownie, though I am assured that in a few years he will be called The Old Grey.

BARNYARD YOUNGSTERS

Norval is a disappointment. Though a direct descendant of the insurgent and resourceful red cow, he doesn’t show a trace of that competent strain. When given the freedom of the orchard, after spending the first three months of his life in the calf pen, there was no exhibition of vitality such as you usually see when a well-fed calf is given space and allowed to find out what his legs are for. He simply toddled out in a hesitating way and shied at every clod of burdock that he came to. He kicked sideways a couple of times in a fairly snappy way, but that was all. When he tried to bawl he emitted a woeful “Ah-ah-wah” that had no clarion note of defiance. His yearling brother, Oats, has a bawl that has a cracker on the end of it like that of an old-fashioned blacksnake whip. And every day or two he breaks through or over or under a fence to show that he respects the memory of his grandmother, and takes pride in keeping alive the family tradition. I am afraid there will be very little copy in Norval. He seems to be entirely deflated. With his pen mate, Genevieve, the case is more promising. She is a grade Jersey with trim lines and an ambitious eye. When she found that she had been given the franchise—I mean when she was turned loose—she careered around until she bumped against fences that in the past had been beyond her horizon. She ran and kicked and ran and rejoiced in her freedom until she was tired out, and out of breath. Then she came meekly to the gate and bawled for her ration of skim milk. It is just possible that I may get some copy out of Genevieve.

You needn’t tell me that horses have any sense or know how to bring up families. There is Rosie and her new, gangling colt. Last week I saw her wading in the government drain and pasturing on some juicy grass that was growing at the edge of the water, and there was that young colt walking alongside of her. He had all four feet in the water, and that must be twice as bad as having two feet soaked. I predicted loudly that he would have hives or croup or his death of cold before morning and that she would be whinnering around asking us to telephone for the veterinary, but she went right on eating grass and paid no attention. And yesterday she was at the same trick, and there was the colt getting his feet wet again. And when a colt gets his feet and legs wet he comes near being wet all over. If he doesn’t develop adenoids before he is much older I shall be greatly mistaken. But instead of worrying about him, as any mother should, that stupid brute goes on pasturing and occasionally nuzzling her colt as if she thought him the most wonderful thing in the world. And he lies around on the damp ground where the sun can shine on him and takes chances of both catching cold and getting sunstruck. But just you wait! You’ll see!

Though all nature rejoiced in the rain, I suspect that the pigs got more satisfaction out of it than anything else. Luck was with them. In favoured times they had a wallow beside the drive shed. But it had long since gone dry. Still, they continued to root in it hopefully until they had a deep bed of dust, in which they seemed to find some comfort. And when the rain came the drip from the drive shed drained into this dusty wallow and filled it with a smooth fluid mortar. The first one that I caught sight of was the old sow—the Speed Hound. She came around the corner of the stable looking as proud and happy as if she were going on parade in a new Paris toilette. She was plastered with mud from hoof to bristle. She even had mud in her eyelashes. It was rich, adhesive, blue clay mud, and she knew that she was in the height of fashion. Then came her family. There are twelve of them, that are feeding luxuriously at a self-feeder from which their indignant mother is excluded. They are just about ready to take a trip to Toronto to see if they will class as “selects” or “thick smooths.” In their outfit of mud they looked just as natty as their mother, and all of them strolled into the orchard to pick up green apples that had been shaken down by the high wind. They even indulged in races with a fat rocking-horse gait. No matter what happens to them after they get to Toronto, they have had at least one happy day in the height of style.

A snapshot observation that I was able to make during a recent raid on the sheep may convey a valuable hint to the alert agricultural scientists. I found that the lambs had not followed their mothers into the flower beds. They were all on the top or on the sides of the root house and a furious game of King of the Castle was in progress. Tinker Bell and Peter Pan (whose names have been abbreviated to Tink and Pete) were holding the top against all comers. They were so intent on their game that they didn’t notice the departure of their mothers and had to be shooed after them. I was sorry to interrupt their game, but they were out of bounds and the gate had to be closed. After I had driven them out they looked disconsolate, and no wonder. The pasture field is as level as a table and hasn’t even an ant-hill that makes a game of King of the Castle possible. I have no doubt that they have been looking enviously at that root house for weeks. Now I am wondering if some such elevation or hillock is not necessary to the proper growth and development of lambs. Who knows but if we put golf bunkers in every sheep pasture we would be able to raise larger and fatter lambs and have more succulent lamb chops. The playful little rascals would take all the exercise they need and in that way grow and increase the profits of the farmer. Besides, it would do the humans on the farm good to take a few minutes off occasionally to watch the lambs at play. I feel quite convinced that it is up to the scientists to investigate this and report on it in an adequate bulletin.

THE WHOLE BUNCH

All the signs seem to be right for doing a bulletin on the farm livestock. During the past week three correspondents have asked me about Sheppy and old Fenceviewer, and last night at milking time the whole aggregation forced themselves on my attention. It happened this way: In the afternoon two little pigs that are taking the rest cure and fattening for winter pork, managed to break out of their pen in the orchard and raid the shed where the chop feed and skim milk are kept. As no one had time to fix their pen they were put in the cow stable for safe-keeping. That started the whole chain of circumstances. When it came milking time we couldn’t put in the cows because of the pigs. We had to milk in the field. While the milking was in progress the colts came galloping up to nose around for salt and they scared the cows. I started to throw clods and sticks at the colts to drive them away, and that started the turkey gobbler swearing at me. By the time I got the colts scattered and the cows gathered again I found that a titled cat was helping himself from the pail of milk that I had incautiously placed on the ground. Just because there was a nail loose in the pigpen I got in trouble with all the livestock. Hence this article. I have a feeling that there is a moral connected with that—let me see. Isn’t there an improving tale about the horseshoe nail that was lost which caused the horseshoe to be lost, which caused the horse to be lost, which caused the man to be lost, etc.? Anyway, I didn’t stop to puzzle out the moral. I simply kicked the cat in the wishbone and resumed the task of milking a fly-bitten cow with an active tail. In the humour I was in she was mighty lucky that I didn’t kick her, too.

I don’t like to accuse cows of being interested in politics, but they are acting very much like it. For the past week they have been doing a lot of bawling, both by day and by night, and I can’t for the life of me make out what they are bawling about. That sounds as if they were indulging in political discussions, doesn’t it? Besides, one day last week Fenceviewer II bolted the convention. Word was brought to the house that she was missing from the pasture field. As I was busy at something else I sent the two littlest boys to hunt for her. Not being versed in the guile of cows and being full of youthful pity they went to the well in the woods to see, if by any chance, she had fallen in. When I got through with my chore I joined the hunt, but I didn’t go to look in the well. No, indeed. I headed straight for the oat field. I didn’t know how she could get in, but as the oat field was the nearest point where she could get into mischief I knew she would be there. And I was not disappointed. As soon as I reached the field I saw her horns and the red line of her back above the waving heads. A hurried investigation showed that she had entered by the government drain. The last time the drain had been flooded a lot of grass got caught on the barbed wires that served as a water fence, and not only covered the barbs, but weighed down the wires so that she could step through. Calling the boys to help me, we drove her out and fixed the fence. Now, wouldn’t you regard the action of that cow as having a political colouring? She left the others to get into a place where the pasture was better—a customary political move. But I hope the cows do not become too political, for I have noticed that political leaders are so confused that they no longer favour us with illuminating interviews, and I am afraid that if the cows get too much mixed up they will not give down either.

HIGH-PRESSURE LIVESTOCK

There has been so much in the papers recently about high-frequency hens and super-efficient cows that I am going to venture a dangerous paragraph that may provoke some unpleasant controversy. Twice in the past few years I have heard theories advanced which would tend to show that human psychology is seriously affected by the animals or fowls specialized in. There is a picture in my mind of an eminent Western ranchman who sat with his feet on his desk and expounded to me his theory that it is possible to know at once by observable characteristics just what is a farmer’s specialty. As he specialized in beef cattle he naturally held that cattlemen are usually men of large and generous proportions, with ideas in keeping with their bulk. As his descriptions of horsemen, sheepmen, cattlemen and poultry specialists were not very flattering, I shall not venture to indicate them. But his theory sounded as plausible as many another, and he was able to back it up with instances that seemed to carry weight. The next testimony that seemed to bear on this point came from a young agricultural specialist who had been travelling through the country investigating certain farm conditions for a government department. He assured me that attempts to develop cows of high milk pressure and butter content and of early laying hens of record-breaking capacity apparently tended to develop a greedy and overreaching type of human being. The man who tried to get the last ounce out of a hen or a cow, he claimed, always wanted to get the last possible penny out of everyone he dealt with. Of course this is a very sweeping generalization to make on somewhat casual data, but there may be something in it. The scriptural injunction, “Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out the corn,” would suggest that the highest efficiency and the most desirable characters do not always go together. What do you think?

SPRING AND THE LIVESTOCK

The winter certainly appears to be over, and neither man nor beast is sorry. We have all been penned in altogether too long, and it feels good to be out in the open again. I notice that it affects the farm creatures in different ways. The cattle seemed unusually lazy, and during the heat of the day most of them lay down where they could let the sunshine soak into their skins. The colts started on a wild scamper around the fields and threw up mud in a way that made it necessary to close them up in the barnyard again, as they were cutting up the pasture. As they abused their freedom they had to be deprived of it. The sheep took things quietly, as might be expected, and I noticed that after a little run fat little Mary Belle stood panting with her mouth open. She and Clarissa and Strafe made a start at playing King of the Castle on an ant-hill, but their mothers kept so close to them that they spoiled the fun. Beatrice seemed to like the heat about as well as anything on the farm. She picked out a snug spot on the south side of what is left of the straw stack, and grunted pleasantly, while the sunshine tickled her fat sides. During the cold weather she made frequent investigating trips around the farm, but the heat seems to make her lazy. The most belligerent creature on the place is the turkey cock. He struts and gobbles and makes thunder with his wings in a most awesome way. Those who do the chores have suggested that if he continues to be so threatening we shall have to put a ring in his nose and lead him around on a chain. He is certainly a noble bird.

NATURE’S UNIVERSITY

The robins, killdeers, red-winged blackbirds and grackles came back with the warm wave. This means that the great university of nature is about to open for its spring and summer terms. In the past I have tried to take as many of the courses as possible, but my studies have been rather desultory because of the unorganized state of this university. This year I think it would be a good idea to have this world-old institution organized along up-to-date lines, so that its affairs may be conducted with proper pomp and circumstance, degrees conferred, and the usual functions of a university properly performed. I have decided to make Mungo, the yearling steer, the chancellor. He is admirably suited to the part, for he is sleek and well-nourished and has a most impressive bellow. He has many of the characteristics of a bank president or a captain of industry, and his experience in getting what he wants on the farm should make his advice on financial and executive matters of the highest value. Besides, he would look well in a gown, with an ornate hood spread over his horns. For president I have decided on an owl that I frequently hear hooting in the woodlot. He is eminently qualified for the position, for all he will be asked to do will be to look wise and hoot from time to time. There are fourteen black squirrels in the woodlot, who will serve as professors. Their qualification is that it is so easy to get them up a tree. For students we shall have all the young birds and the little creatures from mice to rabbits that are born on the farm. It will be a joy to watch them as they attend lectures and become masters of the arts needed to make them good citizens of the world in which they will live. These students will need no compulsion to make them attend lectures, and there will be no danger that any of them will not complete their courses as many human students do who attend human universities. It happens too often that human students who have no taste for learning are compelled to attend and after four years of grinding and plugging reach a condition the reverse of that of Browning’s Grammarian. After a painful attendance on lectures they

The students of our natural university will end their courses fully versed in all the sciences they require and alive to the tips of their fur and feathers. Surely humans could learn something about education from a natural university of this kind.

A human being attending the university of nature may learn many things that will make life richer. He may learn to work in partnership with nature to provide for his simple needs. He may learn to sit still in the sunshine and be in accord with the universe—to be aware of it to its farthest star. He can improve on the techniques of Coué and chant to himself that every day in every way life is better and better. He can learn that in living in accord with nature life sometimes requires action and sometimes stillness. And he will learn that life is very good.

A CRANE SONG

Crane letters are flocking to me by every mail. I shall wait until the spring flight is over before giving a reasoned judgment on the vexed question, “Do cranes sing?” But I have been working in the sugar-bush and today I am moved to chant a crane song.

Success invariably makes a man philosophical.

A BUSY CARPENTER

The busiest worker on the farm just now is a high-holer that has decided to set up housekeeping within a few rods of the house. One of the elms that was denied its place in the sun because of the rapid growth of trees that were more favourably placed finally withered and died. We tried to cut it down, but only succeeded in getting it lodged in another tree. In this position it has been seasoning for two years, and a pair of nesting high-holers evidently decided that it was just what they needed for house building. For two days the work of excavating the hard timber had been proceeding, with only brief intermissions for meals and rest. I regret that I am not enough of an ornithologist to know which is the male and which the female, but as far as I have been able to determine, all the work is being done by the same bird. The larger, fawn-coloured bird has been merely looking on while the smaller, spotted, somewhat grey-coloured bird has been “working his head off”—to use a country expression that may have originated with someone who had been watching a high-holer at work. The front entrance of the house, an almost perfectly round hole, has been completed, and the work of excavating the living-room is making such progress that the bird is sometimes almost out of sight. Not wishing to disturb them by examining their work, we have been watching them from time to time through an opera glass. When working the bird takes hold with his feet and braces himself with his tail feathers and uses his beak as a chisel. Every little while he stops to throw bits of wood over his shoulder and clear his way for more excavating. Judging from the progress being made the wood is very hard, but I have known them to make homes in sound fence posts and telegraph poles, so I guess they will succeed. Apparently these birds have never heard of either the eight-hour day or ca’ canny for the work goes on steadily.

When you find a man about whom people speak no evil, it is evidence, not that the man, but that the people are unusual.

THE MOCKING-BIRD

Calloo! Callay! O frabjous day! Yesterday will be marked henceforth in my calendar as my “frabjous day.” Yesterday afternoon I had a visitor at my tent in the woodlot, a wonderful visitor—the nonpareil of all possible visitors. A mocking-bird came and broadcast a concert from a stag-topped maple a few rods from my tent. It was the most marvellous outpouring of bird song that I have ever listened to. I am no longer envious of those people in Great Britain who heard the song of a nightingale by wireless. I should like to have heard that, of course, but having heard a mocking-bird at what must have been his best, or near it, for I cannot imagine better, I feel that my life has not been entirely wasted.

Some time in the afternoon a boy who was harrowing-in millet came to the opening of my tent and asked: “What is a mocking-bird like?”

“As nearly as I can remember the descriptions of it I have read, it is a dull grey bird, with some white feathers and a long tail.”

“Well, a bird that looks like that has been singing in a thorn tree in the next field. He beats the brown thrasher all hollow.”

That was enough. I went with him to investigate. When we got near enough to hear the rush of whistles and liquid notes I knew that, in any case, the stranger was a musician of marvellous range and power. Presently he fluttered out of the thorn tree and lit on a stump. We were then able to observe the markings that we found later, on consulting a bird book, were those of the mocking-bird. The boy tried to go around him and shoo him towards the woodlot, but he flew to an elm in the field and did some more singing—quite evidently imitating a robin and adding joyous flourishes of his own. At last he stopped, and although we looked through the tree from every side we could not catch sight of him again.

Returning to my tent I felt satisfied that the stranger was a mocking-bird, and was well pleased. Back at work I forgot about him. But after a while I became aware of a perfect rain of music coming down through the fresh green leaves. Stepping out of the tent, I began to search for my visitor. Moving as noiselessly as possible towards the direction from which the music was coming, I searched the leaves and branches for the little grey bird. Presently I met the boy who had been sowing millet. He was also hunting for the musician. Stepping out of the woods into the field, we both spied him at the same moment. He was perched on a dead branch of a stag-topped maple. His music never stopped for an instant. We recognized the songs—with embellishments—of the robin and red-winged blackbird and the notes of hawks, bluejays, high-holers, quail, grackles and others, and there was one song of exquisite sweetness so low that we could hardly hear it. There were many other songs that probably reproduced the notes of warblers with which we were not familiar. And woven through it all were joyous little trills and gurgles of music. While we listened the boy who had been harrowing joined us silently. The little musician would bound into the air occasionally and flutter down to another branch with outspread wings without interrupting his programme. A couple of high-holers flew up and lit beside him. They remained perfectly still and listened as we were listening. But apparently he did not want them about, for he stopped and chased them away. Then he sang for us again. How long we listened I cannot tell, but we got home almost an hour late for supper, and were told that we had been called three times. We had not heard—and yet hearing the call to meals is about the easiest thing we do.

Of course, it would be impossible, and one would be foolish to try. But I have thought of a way to suggest something of the marvel of the mocking-bird’s song. He is a shameless plagiarist. Well, I can plagiarize, too, and the poets are full of beautiful things about the birds. He mixes everything with mocking nonsense, and I can at least try to do that. Of course, I could get many beautiful quotations if I used an anthology, but that would not be sticking to the mocking-bird’s method. He quotes from memory, and if he misquotes he doesn’t bother his head about it. So here goes:

THE MOCKING-BIRD

TOADS

A large warty toad is now claiming squatter rights on our back doorstep. Something should be done about it, but I find it hard to decide what measures I should take. Should I put up a sign, “Keep Off the Toad,” or would it be better to post a warning, “Beware of the Toad”? Different people have stubbed their toes on him—to the distress of the toad and of the people. Though I assure all and sundry that he is entirely harmless, there are those who shriek every time he heaves his fat shoulders and makes a little jump in their presence. Youthful nature students who have ventured to take him up in their hands are looked upon with disgust and assured that their hands will soon be covered with warts. Probably no creature in all nature has been so villainously libelled as the toad. The greatest of poets speak of “the toad, ugly and venomous,” and in fairy lore they are regarded as poisonous. So deeply rooted are these erroneous beliefs that no amount of scientific education seems able to eradicate them. The children are taught in school that the toad is not only harmless, but useful as an insect destroyer, and yet little girls will shriek at a toad just like their mothers. The nature student tells us that our toad has beautiful eyes, with gold trimmings, and though his skill in catching insects with his tongue commends him to those who are fond of flowers, I always know when they catch sight of him—if I am anywhere within half a mile. There must have been man-eating toads at some time in the world’s history to have established so deep a repugnance to them.

Though the doorstep toad receives the most attention, there is another who makes his home under some of the bushes that border the lawn. The doorstep squatter is marked with dirty yellow splotches and is probably of a different variety from the almost black specimen that haunts the lawn. Both are alike in their slow habits and lack of athletic pep. One day when going into the cellar my foot struck against something soft and heavy, and on looking down I found the big black toad. The impact of my foot had tumbled him heels over head, but when he scrambled into his customary squatted position he made no attempt to get away. On the contrary, he tried to scare me to death by holding his breath and trying to puff himself up to an abnormal size. Lifting him out of the cellar entrance, down whose steps he had foolishly jumped, I set him safely on the ground and expected to see him hop off to some safe shelter. Instead he hunched up his shoulders and kept right on swelling. Just then I happened to see a straw and thought that I had a chance to test the truthfulness of Mark Twain’s first popular story. I tickled the toad with the straw, but he refused to jump. He simply leaned back against the straw and continued to puff himself up. I thought I was going to have a real story at the expense of the great humourist—but suddenly I remembered that it was a jumping frog that he had written about. My exposure was a dud. Then I gave the puffed-up toad a shove that sent him over on his nose. Apparently he decided by this time that he wasn’t scaring me very much, and he went away with a rush of little jumps, each about six inches long. Every evening, just as it is getting dark, I see the two toads making little excursions across the lawn, evidently hunting for good spots to lie in wait for bugs and flies. Both—in fact, insects of all sorts—are very plentiful this season, and the toads should get fat unless someone inadvertently steps on them in the dark.

BILL, THE TOAD

We have another permanent resident on the farm whose acquaintance I must cultivate with a view to a nature study. Bill, the toad, lives under the rose bushes, and every evening he hops across the lawn in search of some “murmurous haunt of flies,” where he can make his evening meal. Sometimes Sheppy interrupts his passage by walking around him and barking, and I have even seen the titled cat reach an investigating paw at him. When interrupted in this way he stops and swells up like a profiteer getting on his dignity when subjected to public criticism. To my surprise the children do not hesitate to take Bill up in their hands when they meet him on his progress across the lawn in the twilight. The nature study they do in school has taught them that “the toad, ugly and venomous,” has no more existence in reality than the “precious jewel!” that the poet fabled to be in his head. It is probably all right and quite scientific, but it is hard to overcome youthful prejudices. Even though Bill is as paunchy as a high-living clubman and has other outward signs of being a genial person, I cannot shake off the memory of the

But perhaps after I get better acquainted with Bill I shall think better of him.

A HAPPY WREN

At the present time the happiest creature on the farm is a wren. It sings from morning till night and its song is the most hurried thing imaginable. It seems to be hurrying through each burst of song so that it can draw a breath and start over again. Jenny Wren is hatching in a safe nest and her little mate is so happy that he hardly knows what to do with himself. It was not until yesterday that I located the nest. He would never go to it when anyone was about. Yesterday I happened to be at a window and heard the wren singing in a cherry tree near by. I located him and decided to watch. Presently he flew up to a plank support under the eaves a few feet away from me. With a merry flick of his tail he popped into a crack between the plank and the plate. Then I heard twittering as if he were having a happy conference with his mate. Then he popped out and began to sing again. Or it might have been Jenny that came out while he took charge of the nest. I do not know enough about wrens to know “which from t’other.” Anyway the singing began again with renewed haste and vigour. I went out and tried to peep through the crack where he had visited. From a point of vantage on the doorstep I was able to see the makings of a wren’s nest. It is in a place that is safe from cats unless they learn the trick of walking on the under side of the eaves like flies. What surprised me is that the wren’s nest is only a few inches away from a sparrow’s nest. Though they are both pugnacious they appear to be passing through the nesting period without fighting.

“CHERRIES RIPE!”

Who says that birds lack intelligence—that they cannot reason? We have a pair of robins on the place that are positively human in their efficiency. Instead of wasting time and energy in carrying cherries to their growing family they have solved the transportation problem by bringing their family to a cherry tree at the door and feeding them there. The young robins sit on the branches and lift their wings and squawk while the old robins pull off cherries and stuff them into the gaping mouths. But while this may be interesting to a nature student, there are others whom it moves to wrath. Every little while those robins are shooed away, with lamentations, but they come back regularly as soon as the coast is clear. It is quite plain that the robins look on cherries as their own particular fruit, for I was surprised yesterday to see the old robins chasing away a couple of red-headed woodpeckers. This is the first pair of red-heads I have seen this season, and they must be fond of cherries when they venture so close to a human habitation to get them. But the robins are just as indignant and clamorous against the woodpeckers as the humans are against them. Between them they are stripping the cherry tree almost as fast as the fruit ripens, and the outlook for canned cherries and cherry pies is not bright. If the robins were not so neighbourly and cheery about the place and so useful at other seasons, I might be inclined to agree with the cherry growers who claim that they should all be shot. But a robin’s song from a tree-top, after a storm, is something to win much forgiveness for raids on the cherry trees. I wonder if there is any way of frightening them except the inefficient plan of shaking a broom at them and uttering wrathful cries.

TREASURE TROVE

When the children, stammering with excitement, came to me with the news that they had found the nest of a wild canary, I had to drop everything and go with them to see it. They had seen the canary fly off, so they were sure of the find. The nest is in a little plum tree near the house where we can watch developments secretly and without much trouble. When I examined it carefully I found it something to kindle the imagination. It is entirely built of thistledown. The canary evidently knew the right farm to choose when seeking its materials—but let that pass. It was about the frailest piece of construction I had ever seen—not excepting some of the houses in the newly-opened subdivisions of boom towns. It looked as if a breath would scatter it, but it was so cleverly fashioned in a crotch where three branches forked, that it withstood the wind and the storms. As I looked at it I could not help marvelling how a bird living in accord with nature can adapt itself to every force and rear its young, while man must build cities with mansions and perhaps fortresses that he will later destroy in his destructive rages. And just because the day was built high with sunlight and blue sky, so that a man’s soul could stand to its full stature, I rejoiced that we have never been able to gain that control of the forces of nature that has been our dream. If man controlled those forces the warlords would be using the “Heavens for thunder, nothing but thunder,” the sun would be scorching nations to nothingness and the sea engulfing dreadnoughts and submarines in storms past the vision of Virgil. Better far to be like this little bird and in accord with protecting nature than to be using all the progress we have made in the way of controlling her forces to create woe and desolation, and all to give fame and greatness to warlords.

I was walking away feeling that I had enjoyed a moment of uplifting thought when one of the boys began to tell me that he had once before found a canary’s nest with a cowbird’s egg in it. The little mother had deserted it rather than hatch out the parasite that would destroy her young. Possibly it was because her earlier brood had been destroyed in this way that this canary was hatching so late in the season. So it seems that the bird kingdom has its warlords, greedy and cruel, as well as mankind. Truly it is as hard to draw moral reflections from nature as from man. All seem to be bound up in the same cruel mystery, though we may sometimes have a vision of better things when we try to rise to the perfect enjoyment of a perfect day.

A FAREWELL

I feel safe in announcing that the great blue heron that spent the summer spearing for frogs and tonging for clams in the government drain has finally gone south. By this time he is probably toning up his digestion on a diet of young alligators and electric eels while

For a time it looked as if he intended staying with us all winter. The bird books say that the blue herons leave for the south about the middle of September, and I was ready to bid him good-bye about the time we were picking the apples, but he lingered on through October. When November came and he was still wading in the drain or flapping slowly across the fields, with Sheppy trying frantically to bite his trailing toes, I began to be afraid that something ailed him. But he flew strong at all times, and some other explanation must be found for his lingering in the lap of winter. And he lingered in winter’s lap all right. Every week in November he was seen quite as frequently as during the summer. Even the first flurries of snow did not drive him away. As the streams were still free from ice he probably found no difficulty in getting his living, and he put off the trip south as long as he dared. The last time I saw him was on the fifth of December, when he crossed over, flying high and headed due south. Something about him, as they say in novels, told me that this would be positively his last appearance for the season. There was a snow storm in progress at the time, and it was freezing. Canada was no place for a bird that, according to the best scientific authorities, should have gone south almost three months ago. He has not been seen since that last flight, and as the streams are not only frozen over but drifted full of snow, it is not likely that we shall see him again. Sheppy now has to take his exercise by chasing sparrows.

WELCOME NEWS

One of these days, after we have had a nice fall of snow, I am going to take a walk and pay a visit to a flock of quail that has its home a couple of miles from here. I thought they were gone forever from this district, but last week one of the boys flushed a flock from the roadside ditch. Knowing the district where they were seen, I have a fairly good idea of the cover they are likely to frequent. I want to see their tracks weaving a pattern on the snow and to hear the rush of their wings as they take flight. I feel a little disappointed that the parent birds overlooked the excellent quail cover we now have on the farm when they were selecting a location for their nest last summer. We have thickets of pine and cedar, patches of tangled raspberry canes, and even brush heaps and logs, that would make ideal shelter. We can even offer them a plentiful supply of weed seeds such as they are supposed to favour in their diet. And although the time has been when I hunted quail, that time is passed, and I can promise them the fullest protection from hunters. Until five years ago there had been a flock, and sometimes several flocks, on this farm every year since I can remember, and I have missed their cheery whistling. I wish I knew how to tell them all the advantages we have to offer and I would be as eloquent as a deputation from a Board of Trade that was offering a free site and tax exemptions to a new industry. But the best I can do is to hope that when the flock scatters next spring a pair will discover us and decide to settle in the woodlot or the young orchard.

WINTER NEIGHBOURS

I am glad that the snow has come. It enables me to find out who my neighbours are. The snow reveals the passing of the rabbits and quail and all the wild things that manage to keep hidden with such wonderful skill during the summer. It also enables me to find out that the black squirrel in the woodlot is still living. One came to live with us a couple of weeks ago and I had a couple glimpses of it as it was getting into a hole in the top of a tree, but I thought I had lost it. Last week I heard shooting and saw a couple of boys scurrying away. I thought they had my squirrel with them, but when I was in the woods yesterday I saw plenty of tracks under the beech trees where he had been feeding on the scattered nuts. As the season for squirrels closes this week I am hopeful that he will winter with us. As yet I have seen no quail tracks, but I have heard considerable whistling, and I know they are around. Quail have a habit of staying under cover among the brush and briars during the first days of a storm, but they will soon have to stir out for feed and then I can locate them. This habit of staying under cover often brings disaster, for they sometimes get buried under drifts and are unable to get out again. There are two huge hawks in the woods most of the time, but I am told that they are harmless—beneficial, in fact, as they live entirely on mice. A peculiar thing about them is that they fly away at once when they see anyone approaching on foot, but when I am driving I sometimes get quite close to them. Occasionally on rainy days they will sit in a thorn tree by the road while I drive past. I have been so close to them several times that I could just about see the water dripping off their tail feathers and they looked as if they wanted to have a savage talk with me about the weather. But I was feeling altogether too grumpy to talk to them. There are quite a few bluejays in the woods and in the orchard, and I am learning to look on them as the country barometers. It is generally believed that when they go around squawking and screeching we will soon have a storm. I have been watching them for some time past and I have noticed the storm never fails to come. But this has been such a blustery year that perhaps the storm would have come anyway.

SQUIRREL PROVISIONS

Black squirrels are not the improvident creatures they are generally supposed to be. Just because they do not put away stores of provisions in hollow trees like the red squirrels, or in holes in the ground like chipmunks, they have the reputation of being utterly thriftless. They are supposed to depend for their winter food on beech nuts that they reach by digging through the snow, or on edible roots that they reach in the same way. In addition to this precarious means of support they eat the buds of shrubs and trees. A couple of years ago I ventured the opinion that the black squirrels prepare for the winter in a peculiar way of their own. When walking through the woodlot in the fall I happened to kick up an ear of corn that had been buried in the leaves, or had been dropped where the leaves had drifted over it. This led me to suspect that the black squirrels do not dig at random in the winter months, but have little stores scattered about the ground which they either remember or are guided to by their sharp sense of smell. If they put away stores in hollow trees they would almost certainly be robbed of them by the pugnacious little red squirrels. In spite of the difference in their size, the red squirrels can whip the black squirrels, and would undoubtedly rob them. Because of this the only way they could provide for the winter would be by having their supplies hidden where their enemies would not be likely to find them. As I have never seen evidence of the red squirrels digging through the snow for food—having their supplies near their nests, where they can protect them—it is probable the black squirrels developed the instinct of hiding their provisions in the leaves.

When the weather moderated and the mercury had climbed to two degrees above zero I decided that it was a good time to visit the woodlot and see how the lesser livestock of the farm is wintering. As there had been a fresh fall of snow, the tracks would reveal the latest activities of the squirrels and rabbits. When I reached the woodlot I found plenty of fresh tracks, showing that the squirrels had been out feeding after the storm. Noticing that there was quite a path beaten by the squirrels into an oat stubble, I followed it, and about five rods from the trees I found the remains of an ear of corn. It had been buried under about six inches of drifted snow. It was impossible for the squirrels to see it from the trees, so they must have remembered where it was or were led to it by a marvellously acute sense of smell. It was clear that they did not find it by hunting, for their tracks led straight from the nearest tree. There had been no wandering about on the snow before it was found. The first squirrel that went to that ear of corn went straight to it and the others followed in its tracks. Owing to the wet weather that preceded the storm the ear of corn was frozen to the ground and only the grains from the top side had been eaten. There will be another meal or two on it when the thaw loosens it. While walking through the woodlot I found another place where an ear of corn had furnished a feast. It had also been approached by a straight path, which showed that the squirrel did not discover it by accident, but had gone straight to it. This ear was also frozen to the ground and only part of it had been stripped. An examination of other spots where the squirrels had been digging and had left the hulls of beech nuts showed that these stores had been approached in the same sure way. There had been no purposeless digging in the snow before the food had been found.

These observations lead me to believe that the black squirrels make provision for the winter just as carefully as the red squirrels and chipmunks. And when you take into consideration the fact that the red squirrels can whip their black brothers and would probably rob them, it becomes apparent that the only way the black squirrels could provide for the winter would be by adopting the careless-seeming plan of leaving food scattered about in places where they can find it, and where their enemies will not be likely to look for it.

AN UNEXPECTED CALL

When the quail came right up to the door I might have known that something good was going to happen. It was during the cold spell—the lion spell—in the beginning of March. Everything was buried under snow and at seven o’clock in the morning the thermometer had touched ten degrees below zero. I was doing the chores at the stable when I heard the quail whistling in the orchard and fully intended going to have a look at them, to see how they were wintering. I had not set out feed for them for, alas, there are enough weeds on the place and in the neighbourhood to feed them fat. But to resume: When I had finished the chores and was starting towards the house I struck the tracks of the quail, looking like a picture of loosely strung barbed wire on the snow. To my surprise I found that they were headed straight for the house. In growing amazement I followed them until they passed around the corner of the house and then I saw the marks of their wings on the snow where they had taken flight, within ten feet of the front door. I felt really disappointed when I found that they had paid me a visit and I had not been at home. I do not know of many from whom I would have so thoroughly enjoyed a little call. No one in the house had noticed them, but judging from the excitement of Sheppy, the dog, he must have seen them and perhaps had something to do with their flight. He kept running about nosing their tracks and barking. It made me feel that I am being accepted in the country, now that the quail are so friendly. They are very careful about their neighbours and it is not everyone they are willing to chum with.

THE CAREFREE WOODCHUCK

I admire the woodchuck. His evolutionary development followed well-considered lines. That is why he is such a fat rascal and lives in clover. He doesn’t worry. He sleeps. When he strikes a spell of weather such as we are having just now he goes down into his hole and snoozes until the little warm airs steal down to him and announce a return of sunshine. Stevenson probably had woodchucks in mind when he wrote:

The woodchuck is not cursed with a mania for owning things—especially things that must be milked twice a day and fed regularly. When a sleet storm comes along the woodchuck knows just what to do—so he does nothing. Though I can make myself as comfortable beside the stove as a woodchuck is in his hole there are always cares that drive me out into the storm at frequent intervals. This morning I sat by the stove and “read the Globe for forty-eight years” while the east wind drove the sleet against the windows. The world outside is silver grey with ice. The rose bushes look as if they were made of glass and already the apple trees are looking as if it wouldn’t take much more to start the branches breaking off. And yesterday we thought that spring was here. O, to be a woodchuck when April is here!

Our follies and vices receive an instant recognition that is not accorded to our virtues.

 

 

A TREASURY OF FARM

PHILOSOPHY

 

 

FARM POSSESSIONS

How many farmers know the full extent of their possessions? Most of them know how many acres they own and the probable value of their crops, stock, and investments, but that is only a small part of their heritage. The laws of property deal only with such things as can be handled and trafficked in, but the farmer is rich in many things besides these. His powers of enjoyment are not “fobbed with the rusty curb of old Father Antic, the law.” Every sense is catered to by things that are as free to him as the air. The sunshine, the cooling breeze, the odour of flowers and the music of birds have no regard for line fences, however carefully they may be surveyed, and the view from the hill-top that takes in a score of farms and the little village with its church spires belongs to him as surely as if he had a deed for it properly registered. The ownership of his senses extends beyond the boundaries of his farm in every direction. The ancient philosopher who thanked the rich man for sharing his wealth with him when he showed him his stores of gold and jewels uttered a truth whose full significance we should all try to appreciate. The farmer who has a beautiful clump of trees by his house or a well-cared-for piece of woodland shares it with everyone whose eye it pleases. The country girl who has a garden of flowers confers a favour on everyone who passes that way, whether friend or stranger. In the same way the man who has an untidy farm with tumbled-down buildings and ragged fences does an injury to the whole countryside. He maintains an eyesore that offends everyone of taste who is forced to see it.

The man does not really own his farm who does not know all its pleasant places and its possibilities of enjoyment. He should know the shadiest tree under which to read a book or spend an hour in day-dreaming. It would do him no harm to know where the hepaticas bloom first and what green aisles of the woods are heavy with the incense of phlox. He should be acquainted with the robins that return to the same nest year after year, and should be familiar with every view worth pausing to look at when driving about the country attending to his affairs. They all belong to him, and it is his own fault if he does not enjoy them. The greatest advantage of owning a farm is that it gives a man the freedom of the whole country. The “No Trespass” signs have no terrors for the eye that is open to beauty, and the enjoying mind takes for its own wherever it finds it. It is all very well to have everything on your farm as it should be, so that you will get the best results from your labour, but if you value the piece of ground that you own merely for the crops it will yield, you should not be encumbering it, but, as Mark Twain said, “should be under it, inspiring the cabbages.”

LITERATURE OF THE FARM

Many explanations have been offered of the trend of country people moving to the cities, but it is possible that the true source of the difficulty has been overlooked. Students of the problem have been too practical. They have discussed the difficulty in terms of dollars and cents and of hard labour. An idealistic observer with keen insight may lay the blame on our literature and art. For some generations compulsory education has been scattering the leaven of learning in the rural districts, and what are we offering the new army of readers and seekers for culture? We are offering them history, romance and poetry in which war, statecraft, social, eminent, artistic, poetic, and professional ability yield to heroic souls ample harvests of success, fame and perhaps content.

Agriculture, the most essential of the world’s industries, has not been touched by the glamour of literature and art. Poets and writers who have dealt with it have given us creations in dialect, and artists who have illustrated this kind of literature have depicted a race of men and women in jeans and gingham. This is not the kind of thing calculated to rouse the ambition of country boys and girls. Their heroes are fair spoken, well-dressed and skilled in courtly manners. They feel that to develop themselves to make the most of their lives they must away to the cities where the things that literature and art glorify may be found or accomplished.

You cannot expect young men of spirit to take to farming until it has been idealized. In the present condition of public taste they can only hope to figure in literature as stupid and sometimes amusing drudges, and in art as raw-boned monstrosities with whiskers in their ears. They dream of military uniforms, places on boards of directors and well-dressed triumphs of all kinds that are adequately applauded by beautiful women dressed in the latest fashion. All our literature and art tends to foster these foolish dreams. It is vain for philosophers to preach the advantages of the simple life and for editors to preach the great duty of producing the world’s food. Duty, the “stern daughter of the voice of God,” is not popular with the young. They want life and action and joyousness; and because literature and art have taught them that these are the things most to be desired, they hurry to the cities to find them.

The art of living has not penetrated to the country, and you need not expect it to make progress until we have that new race of poets and writers and artists which Whitman foresaw but of which he was not the protagonist. He sang the glories of work—but did not work much. Thoreau with all his cantankerousness came nearer to the new literature. His farming was all done to supply his own needs and he foresaw the possibilities of leisure and ease in connection with farm life when he said; “No man need earn his bread in the sweat of his brow unless he sweats more easily than I do.”

When that time comes we shall have a new literature, art and poetry, and the world will be given new ideals. Instead of the age of poetry being past, it is merely beginning to dawn.

THE ART OF PRUNING

I have to thank F. M. Clement, B.S.A., for a kindness he had no thought of doing me. By a chance question he recast all my ideas of farm work. He flung two words at me over his shoulder, and instantly my ideas shifted, like the bits of coloured glass in a kaleidoscope when you shake the tube. He came over from Dutton yesterday to show me how to handle that orchard I have been talking about, and, to begin with, he pruned a tree. While at work, he explained just why he removed one branch and spared another, and told me just what I should have in mind when pruning a tree. Of this part of my experience I shall have nothing to say, for you can get such instructions as he gave in the bulletins or in The Farmer’s Advocate. From time to time I asked questions, and tried to figure out just how much hard work I would have to do to get results. I was also figuring how much of the work I could get out of doing without being caught. But he finally completed his task, so that every branch was swinging free and open to the sunlight. Then he climbed down and looked at his work. I was standing behind him. Suddenly he asked, with a backward turn of his head: “How’s that?”

There you have the question that startled me. Simple enough, isn’t it? There doesn’t seem to be much to it, but wait.

It has been my privilege to stand beside a great artist while he drew aside the curtain from his picture, and then to have him fling the same question at me: “How’s that?”

It has also been my privilege to have poets whom the world acclaims as great, recite their poems to me, and then ask: “How’s that?”

To have the same question flung at me in the orchard was something of a shock. The manner and the tone were the same. I realized that once more I had been asked to pass on something in which a man had expressed himself. The chance question suddenly elevated work to a form of self-expression worthy to rank with the great arts. Ever since I have been able to see possibilities in work—mere work. It is something that a man can engage in as a man, and not simply as a drudge.

“How’s that?”

Now the cat is out of the bag. I have let you see that I do not like physical work, and never have. But I am neither humiliated nor ashamed. Why should I like work? I have seen it in almost all its forms, and have practised it in a few. Almost everywhere it is slavish and sordid. I have seen it in the sweat-shops of the big cities, in the factories of the New England States, the mills of the south, and of England, and on the Canadian farms. Always it was wearing, soul-stifling, degrading. Men, women, and children—little children—were being ground to extinction by work. They became old before their time, broken-spirited, deformed. Work is a hideous monster, demanding all we can give of youth and strength and vitality, and giving in return only a starved and meagre living. Seeing work in this way, I learned to hate it. It has the “primal, eldest curse on it.” It is slavery of the cruellest kind, and makes slaves of men even where they are their own masters. Do you wonder that I turned to the arts? The arts are joyous, exultant. They enable a man to express himself, and we all hunger for self-expression. The greatest tragedy in the world is to be misunderstood, and we are all misunderstood. The artist makes himself understood—at least, to a select few—but the worker usually dies “with all his sweetness in him.”

But here was a worker who expressed himself by an ordinary piece of farm work. He had laid creative hands on a tree, and it would take form as a picture might under the brush of an artist, or a song on the lips of a poet. He had put into it his conception of what it should be. In that way he gave expression to his own soul, and was willing that the world should look and see. He had enjoyed the task because he had a definite purpose and knew just what he was doing. He got the effect he was after, just as an artist might when working under the stimulus of an urgent inspiration. I looked with new-found admiration, and now the tree has a new meaning to me. I feel that he has revealed to me something of himself, just as did the artists and the poets.

“How’s that?”

Since getting this little flash of light, farm work has looked very good. Farming is a great art, and the artist works with life, rather than with pigments or words. He gets his effects by working in accord with nature. Surely that is greater than merely imitating nature, or describing it. And, though I look at farming in this way, I do not regard it any the less as a science or as a money-making proposition. In fact, it should be all the more scientific and profitable by making it artistic. The art puts the joy into it and elevates it above mere drudgery. Mark Twain said that “Play is work that a man enjoys,” and I see no reason why many kinds of farm work should not have the charm of play. If we could only go at it in that way, we would accomplish more, and life would be more worth living.

EXPERT FARMING

We often hear of the joy the artist feels in his perfect work. The thrill of having a picture hung on the line, of having one’s poem printed on the first page of a magazine, is delightful. They make life better worth living, and make one take an interest in his work, but I want to tell you that none of the thrills of art can surpass the joy one experiences in looking over a field that gives promise of a good crop, and realizing that one has done his share in making it what it is. The greys and browns of the freshly-worked soil and the tender green of the growing crop make a picture worthy of the brush of any painter or the lyre of any poet. But when you realize that, with your help, and for you, nature is performing the miracle of growth which makes each grain yield a hundred fold you have a chance to feel in accord with the universe and to realize that life is very good. The best time to enjoy this is at sunrise when every leaf is bejewelled with dew. Seeing the sun rise in the country because you are up early is much better than seeing it rise in the city because you have been up too late and yet I am afraid that of those who rise early in the country less than a few stop to admire the sunrise. Instead, they hurry to give swill to the squealing pigs, and if they pause at all it is to wonder if the fruits will be fat enough to sell while the market is good. It is terrible how much work does to keep down what is best in us. Personally, I think people should be more temperate about work, since it cannot be entirely prohibited.

The average Englishman has so deep a reverence for antiquity that he would rather be wrong than recent.

WHY I STICK TO THE FARM

Why do I stick to the farm?

You might as well ask a woodchuck why he sticks to his hole.

This comparison has more foundation in fact than you perhaps imagine, for whenever I come home from a little visit to the outerworld I always turn into the lane with a joyous chuckle that is much like the chuckle that a woodchuck chuckles when he dives into his tunnel. The farm is a place of peace, a place of refuge and a home. This is a point on which the woodchuck and I are entirely agreed.

The farm means all these things to me because I was born on it and have learned to realize something of its possibilities. All my memories of childhood and boyhood are bound up with it. To be born on a farm is the greatest good that can befall a human being. To live on a farm and enjoy all that it has to offer is the greatest good that can be attained by a poet or a philosopher.

To make it clear why I harbour these convictions it is necessary to sweep away some mistaken notions about farming. To do this perhaps I cannot do better than explain just how this particular farm came to be hewn from the wilderness. The work of clearing the land and bringing it under cultivation was done by men and women who had only one purpose in life—to establish a home where they and their children might be free. They made their home self-sustaining—winning their food, clothing and shelter from the land and its products, by the labour of their own hands. The home was their ideal. All the farm work was undertaken to provide for its needs and when the home was supplied they rested. Their ambition was satisfied.

Brought up in this home I missed learning too young the lessons that destroy so many homes. To begin with I had only the vaguest ideas of personal ownership. The home belonged to all of us and our work went to keep it up and pay expenses. It is true that contact with the world finally educated the children to ideas of personal property and roused our ambitions. Driven by these generally accepted ideas we went our way, but somehow the farm that had been started right stayed in the backs of our minds as home. Although I have lived in far countries and great cities no place ever was my home except this farm. And in due time I came back to try to carry on the home tradition that had been established by a pioneer father and mother.

I stick to the farm because it is the most satisfactory thing in the world to stick to. It is solid, right down to the centre of the earth. It stays right where it is through depressions, panics, wars and every other kind of human foolishness. Even an earthquake could only joggle it, and this is not an earthquake region.

Moreover, you can’t speed up the farm. It is timed to the sun and the seasons. Airships may pass over it at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles an hour, but the thistle-downs that rise from my fields go at the rate of the prevailing wind, just as they did when they rose from the Garden of Eden. You can’t hurry the farm and you can’t hurry me. The grass grows and the leaves come out when spring comes dawdling back from the south and not one minute before.

I stick to the farm because it is the only thing I have ever found that is entirely dependable. The seed-time and the harvest come to it every year with easygoing and unworried certainty. They never come twice at exactly the same time nor bring the same bounties, but they never fail to come. They may fail to bring wheat, but if they do they will bring abundant corn:

The farm means “safety first” with the safety guaranteed by all-embracing nature—and the labour of your own hands. It is well not to forget the labour of your own hands.

To get the fullest enjoyment out of the farm you must do things for it with your own hands. A farm is like a friend. The more you do for a friend the better you like him and the more you do for a farm the dearer it becomes to you.

Although I am friends with all the trees on the farm, the ones I like best are those that I planted myself. The shade trees that I planted myself seem to throw a more generous shade than any other and no apple tastes as good as one from a tree that I planted, fertilized, pruned, sprayed and looked after myself. I have planted thousands of trees in the woodlot and no artist ever got such a thrill from looking at his finished masterpiece as I get whenever I visit my plantation and see how much the trees have grown since my last visit. To get the most out of a farm you must put yourself into it—do things for it that will be permanent—do them with your own hands.

Of course, farming means hard work. That side of it has been harped on until even a lot of farmers think it means nothing else. That tale has been told since the beginning until it has become exactly what Tennyson has called it:

But even the hardest working farmer can afford to devote an occasional few minutes to enjoyment—especially at mealtimes. Let us give some consideration to this more frivolous side of farming. Let us begin with the spring. When the warm winds and the rains begin to sweep away the snow and to unbind the shackles of frost, just draw a deep breath and realize that you are more alive than anything else on earth. The farmer’s work is with the very elements of life and he should enjoy life to the full. Even the cattle begin to bawl and show an interest in life as soon as the grass shows green beyond the barnyard fence. You do not even have to stop your work to hear the first notes of the song sparrow or the honking of the wild geese passing overhead. The sun is busier than you are, bringing warmth and growth to every seed, bud and root—to wildflowers and weeds as well as to your precious wheat—and see how serene he is about it all. He can even take time to jocularly burn a blister on the back of your neck on his busiest day.

The tulips and the daffodils in the garden need only a glance to give you their message of beauty, and if you happen to be hurrying through the woodlot you can surely pause long enough to see the anemones and spring beauties at your feet.

On this particular farm the opening rite of spring is tapping the sugar-bush. But I will not dwell on the joys of making sugar, for all farms are not blessed with sugar maples.

But my delight in maple syrup is hardly over before I begin paying furtive visits to the asparagus bed. I planted that asparagus myself, and I like to be on hand the first morning that a thick, fat shoot pushes up through the ground. After the asparagus come strawberries, raspberries, new potatoes—a list that becomes more crowded as the seasons pass until we have picked the last apples and pitted the potatoes in the fall. Spring, summer and autumn are all linked together with beauties and luxuries and delights.

And even the winter has its charms. As the animals are more dependent on us they become more friendly. Horses, cows, sheep, pigs, hens all greet us in their own characteristic way when we visit them in the morning. And what is more exhilarating than the days spent in the woodlot, with the snow crunching underfoot and the axe rousing the frosty echoes? The farmer prepares his year’s supply of fuel without thought of strikes or soaring prices.

Of course if you estimate everything in terms of dollars you can never understand why I stick to the farm. Dollars enter very little into the question. If you wish you may quote me a price for the basket of new potatoes I bring in from the garden, but what price can you put on the satisfaction I get from digging potatoes of my own planting and tending? Can you put a price on the joy of turning up a hill of big ones that might have taken the prize at the fall fair and knowing that all this is due to my practical partnership with nature in producing them? The potatoes themselves may satisfy bodily hunger, but the joy of producing them satisfies the soul’s hunger for creation, and it is priceless.

While meditating on this aspect of farm life I went for a ramble in the pasture field to hunt for mushrooms. For half an hour—while picking up beauties—I canvassed my memory to see if I could remember the price I had got for anything I had ever sold off the farm. Although I have lived on this farm most of my life and have sold all kinds of farm stock and produce I could not remember the exact price I got for one item. But I remembered how beautiful the apples were the first year we pruned and sprayed the old orchard. I could remember how fine the oats looked the year we had them in the field back of the root house. I remembered litters of little pigs that were as plump as sausages and as cunning as kittens. I remembered calves that I had fed to admired sleekness and hogs that I had stuffed to fatness, but the prices they fetched I could not remember.

And that was not because I did not need the money—I have always needed the money and sometimes needed it bitterly—but the cash crop was not the crop that satisfied. As I let my memory wander over the past, hunting for prices that had failed to make a record, I remembered climbing the pear tree to get a big pear that had lodged in a fork and had ripened lusciously in the sun. I remembered tramping through a wet pasture gathering mushrooms and how a little moist hand stole into mine because a little maiden was afraid of a cow we were passing. I remembered coasting with a home-made sled on a little bank beside the creek, and also remembered seeing my children coasting on that same bank on sleds of their own making. I could see in the perspective of memory great piles of apples under the trees, shining fields of corn, colts scampering in the pastures, lambs playing King of the Castle on anthills—a crowding, joyous film of homely pictures that brought happy tears to my eyes—and there was not a dollar mark on one of them. The dollars are necessary, of course—very necessary—but you can earn dollars digging in a sewer, or get them by sharp practices in business. But where else but on the farm can you get the needful dollars and forget them in the joy of your surroundings?

These are a few of the reasons why I stick to the farm, and I feel sure that the woodchuck would endorse every word I have written.

MY MAHATMA

To the ordinary unilluminated eye he was simply a farmer, “a goodly, portly man in face and corpulent.” It was just for these qualities that I chose him as my Mahatma. At the present time everybody who can afford a ouija board or is worth fleecing by a medium is trying to get in touch with the next world. All sorts of fakirs with unhealthy complexions are reaping a harvest from the credulous. But the passion of my life is to get in touch with this world—with the dreary, wonderful, tragic, exhilarating, prosy, poetical world that we have been born into. And I find it just as hard to get in touch with this world as the seekers find it to get in touch with the next. That is why I chose a good, fat, material Mahatma who is quite obviously in touch with such gross things as food, shelter, clothing, the sunshine, the fresh air and the good brown earth. While others are trying to establish communications with outlying planets I am trying to get into communication with the planet on which I live. Instead of trying to lease a private wire to the invisible, I want, as far as possible, to learn a little about the visible, and tangible, and audible, and smellable and tastable world in which I am obliged to sojourn. In this humble quest my Mahatma is a great help. He does not say cryptic things or babble trivialities in the name of the mighty dead.

NATURE AND ART

The wonderful thing about the country is that so little of it ever gets into books. Poets write songs about it, but they do not lead people to go out and enjoy the country as the poet enjoyed it. On the contrary, we admire the music of his words, instead of admiring nature. The poet may tell us what he finds in nature, but instead of trying to find in nature what he did, we study his book and try to find it there. And it is not there. Poems about the beauties of nature make their appeal to indoor people, but to all who have enjoyed nature they are always inadequate. Nature appeals to all the senses at once, and no form of art can do that. Even if you could combine poetry, painting and music and offer them in a perfumed hall they would still lack what is best in nature. Beyond the appeal to the senses, nature gives a sense of harmony that is beyond all the arts. The more we learn to appreciate nature—especially in these glorious spring days—the more we feel that the arts are all for indoor people who have lost touch with all that is best in life. The arts build up a new form of life that needs interpreters and a vast overhead of learning and scholarship, but nature yields her fullness to the simple, as well as to the wise.

COUNTRY INTERESTS

Educationists assure us that it is the finest thing in the world to be interested in everything. That is the way to learn about all sorts of interesting things. Out here in the country being interested works out all right. If I hear an unfamiliar bird note in the orchard I can take a healthful walk and enjoy a session of nature study. If the sunshine attracts my attention I can hunt up a sheltered spot and enjoy its genial warmth. A rabbit track that seems to be headed towards the orchard will prompt a walk to see how the young trees are coming on, and may lead to the discovery of a lot of interesting things. In the country a man may safely allow himself to be interested, but in the city it is different. The matter of interesting people has been reduced to a science. If one’s attention is attracted by an attractive splotch of colour on a billboard he will soon find himself convinced that he should go to some lecture, concert or movie show. Something interesting in a show window will cause him to pause, and before he realizes what has happened he will find that he is almost persuaded to buy something that he really does not need and perhaps cannot afford. But if he has cultivated the habit of being interested it is hard for him to escape. A man would need to be a millionaire to be interested in the city.

NATURE’S SECRET

Have you ever watched a small boy trying to make a broad jump? He will go back and back, so as to get a good start, and when at last he tries he has to run so far before he reaches the mark that he is out of breath and can’t jump. Well, that is exactly the fix I am in this morning. There is something I want to talk about, and I want to do it without appearing to be teaching a lesson or drawing a moral or preaching a lay sermon. I have gone so far back in my attempt to get a good start that for the past half hour I have been grumbling against Shakespeare for having made the Duke say that he could find

If I thought there was any truth in those lines I would lock myself in the house and pull down the blinds, so that I could not see the face of nature. I can enjoy nature only when I feel that nature is enjoying herself. Of course the explanation of Shakespeare’s little sermon lies in the fact that the Duke was speaking in character, and he was a stodgy, inefficient person of the kind that are all the time going around spoiling the good things of life by drawing morals from them. That same Shakespeare had a little practice that casts a great light on the workings of his mind. He usually put his wisest philosophy into the mouths of his fools and his noblest sentiments into the mouths of his worst villains. It was the murderous king in Hamlet who mouthed about the divinity that hedges the person of a king, and it was Iago who moralized about the stealing of one’s purse being the stealing of trash. Because of this I don’t believe that Shakespeare ever meant that “sermons-in-stone” stuff to cast a gloom over my open-air life in this glorious spring weather. It is my private opinion that he accepted life as he found it with more irresponsible joyousness than any other man that ever walked the earth, and if he let some of his characters drool improving sentiments it was because he found people doing such things, and found, moreover, that it was the people whose actions conformed to them the least whose sentiments were the most elevating.

But this is not what I intended talking about at all. However, I warned you in the opening sentences that I might not be able to make my jump after all. To do or say anything definite requires concentration, and how can a man concentrate his mind when the sun is shining and the south wind blowing and the birds singing and the children asking when we are to go fishing? Then there is the garden to be attended to and so many other things to be done that one doesn’t know where to start. And all the while, as some poet has sung:

But I mustn’t go fishing. That would be flying right in the face of public opinion. Everybody is working as everybody should be. Instead of saying, with Hamlet, “I must be idle,” I must say with the prosaic people who make up this workaday world, “Get busy! Get busy!”

Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.

UNABASHED FEELINGS

Most of us are ashamed of our feelings—such things are supposed to be mushy and sentimental. I incline to the opinion that, on the contrary, they are eminently practical. The trouble is that we are as yet underdeveloped on the side of our emotions. Only the poets have dared to enjoy things in this way. Their testimony is overwhelming and like Lowell, “I trust the poets.”

wrote Wordsworth. There is no hint of knowledge in that. He was simply touched by emotion, and sang of it as naturally as a bird. Keats, in one of his most ecstatic passages, exclaims:

He was conscious of them, and that was enough to move him to song. As a matter of fact the poets, to whom we owe what is best in life, have all a certain contempt for knowledge. It was Keats who said:

Shakespeare, with his splendid sanity, is even more outspoken:

It was not through knowledge that the poets reached their sublimities, but through feeling.

The satisfaction to be derived from all this is that enjoyment is open to all. Knowledge is a closed book to most of us and few of us can think. The most we seem able to do with our minds is to worry. But we can all feel if we will only give ourselves the chance. Why should we be ashamed to feel that the day is fine and the birds are singing and that the clover is in bloom? No thought of our fine culture is necessary for that. Here is a door to happiness that stands open to all. And somehow after one has been revelling in the enjoyment of letting the feelings have free play he can think more clearly and sanely. When once you have allowed yourself to be in tune with nature you cease to worry because you cannot understand humanity or the mad ambitions of your fellow-men. Such things no longer seem of importance. Even knowledge, after which men struggle with the same mad futility as they do for wealth and power, seems a trifling thing. Nature does not ask you to understand anything. She simply invites you to be in accord with her, and if you respond she will crowd every sense with peace-giving enjoyment.

WORDSWORTH RECONSIDERED

This letter is going to be written under difficulties, for a beautiful May morning is altogether too distracting for a man to be able to concentrate his thoughts. All the senses are being delicately catered to by spring delights. A balmy breeze is puffing through the open door, laden with fresh odours; snatches of bird song assail my ears, and whenever I raise my eyes from the paper the mellow sunlight invites me to wander in the garden or orchard. As for the sense of taste, my briar-root pipe is at its best. By yielding to the allurement of any of the senses I could enjoy myself to the full. In addition to this a clutch of hen’s eggs was hatched out last night in a barrel at the foot of the garden, and the duck eggs are chipped. I am not particularly interested in this, but a little boy is more interested than I can pretend to be in anything and he insists on giving me bulletins every few minutes.

“One of the chickens has its head stuck out froo the old hen’s fevvers.”

“Yes, yes! Run along now. Can’t you see that I am busy?”

There are a lot of minnows in the creek a few rods away, and they are dividing his attention somewhat. This morning he had a mess of chub about the size of sardines for breakfast and he thinks I should go fishing to provide food for the family. He is so serious about it all that it is a shame to smile at him, especially when I have nothing better to do than to write nonsense. But there are times when even writing nonsense seems like hard work, and this is one of them. It would be much better if the people who are in the habit of reading newspapers were to go out and devote the time it takes to read a column or so of print to enjoying nature for themselves. Why not stop right now and spend a few minutes in the open air with every sense alert to what is going on around you? I would if I could.

There have been hours this spring when I have felt like criticizing Wordsworth, even though he, above all others, is the poet of nature. There is one familiar quotation from his poems that has done more to set nature lovers wrong than anything else in the language. If I could, I would verify it to make sure that it is quoted as he meant it, but for some unaccountable reason my copy of his poems, which I thought was complete, does not contain “Peter Bell.” It is many years since I read the poem, but the impression that sticks in my memory is the popular one that Peter was regarded as an undesirable citizen because:

Now it seems to me that if Peter realized that, he reached the highest point possible to a poet. A flower in itself is more wonderful than anything that can be imagined about it. It is a beautiful part of the universal mystery—just as wonderful and mysterious as a constellation. The primrose is perfect in itself and its charm is not increased by the fact that men have “sought out many inventions” about it. To the scientist it is a gamopetalous plant, to the politician the emblem of an aristocratic political league, and to the student curious in ancient philosophy a possible key to the Pythagorean system. There you have “inventions” with a vengeance, but in reality it is simply a yellow primrose, and it is nothing more. If Peter Bell was able to look at it in that simple way he achieved an intellectual feat that is almost impossible to us in this age of profound explanations that explain nothing.

“What’s that?”

“The chicken that had its head sticking through the fevvers tumbled out, and the old hen pushed it back under her with her beak.”

“Good for her. Run along now.”

But it will not do to scold Wordsworth too much for this mistake about Peter Bell, for he shows in other poems that when he was at his best he regarded things from Peter’s simple point of view:

There is nothing in that to suggest that he considered a rainbow as anything but a rainbow. There is no hint of a study of the laws of refraction or of the symbolism which makes the rainbow a pledge that the world will never again be destroyed by water. In fact, we might parody Peter Bell and say:

Because Wordsworth, the man, accepted the rainbow as he did when a child he gave us a perfect gem of poetry. And everything else in the world is just as poetical if approached in the same childlike spirit.

ENJOYING LIFE

Herbert Spencer somewhere defines perfection as “a state of correspondence with environments.” If you take the trouble to get at his meaning you will find that it is a very good definition, and then if you begin to investigate your environments you will probably be surprised to find how imperfect you are. We are surrounded by an infinite number of things with which we have no correspondence, and most of them could be made sources of enjoyment if we only took a little trouble that would soon change to a pleasure. For instance, when you stop to let your horses have a breathing spell during this hot weather, instead of letting your mind dwell on the prospects of a good crop or on some trifling matter that you are allowing to worry you try to get in touch with the world around you. Every sense is being catered to all the time if you would only attend. Suppose, to begin with, that you use your ears and try to count how many birds are singing during the minute you are resting. You will be amazed to find that bobolinks, robins, song sparrows, meadow larks, blackbirds, catbirds and many others are either singing or uttering their familiar cries everywhere in the fields and woods and that the musical tumult is pleasant to hear. By listening even for a minute every day you will soon find that these sounds are appealing to your ears all the time. At any time you can stop and be refreshed by melody. Another time you might try noticing how much you can see during the minute you have to stop, as a merciful and careful man should, to rest your horses.

Every field and every tree is of a different shade of green, and has a character of its own. You may find that some tree you have been passing every day has some special charm of form or colour that you never noticed before. You will soon notice that every tree has a distinct appearance, and will be surprised to find how far you can distinguish one from another. If, instead of looking abroad, you look down at the earth you will find it throngs with life. Plants and insects challenge your attention everywhere, and all are interesting. Even a newly-turned clod is worthy of study for what it will reveal. Once train your eye to see things and it will be a never-ending source of delight to watch what is going on in nature around you while you are at work. In the same way as you train your eye and ear you can with little trouble train your other senses. You can soon learn to know whether the breeze that touches your cheek so soothingly has plucked the petals of a rose or has paid a vagrant visit to some nook of the forest where the phlox is in bloom. A little attention in moments of idleness will train your senses to be in touch with your environments, so that you can at least get a hint of that perfection to which Spencer refers. While you take no notice of the things by which you are surrounded and which are ministering delight you are crippled and imperfect. You might as well be without those delicate senses unless you learn to enjoy with them. But learning to use your senses will not put you into “a state of correspondence” with all your environments. As you learn to look outward from yourself and to dwell less in your mind, that is so apt to breed cares and foolish worries, you will presently find your environments moving farther back and your life expanding. Your mind will presently be reaching out for the things that are beyond the immediate touch of your senses, and you will begin to realize what a mysterious and wonderful world you are living in. Your interest will gradually reach out to the stars and the universe itself. In time you will learn that such perfection as Spencer had in mind can only be attained by the alert mind that is at all times in accord with the bewildering glories of the universe and conscious of its own place and dignity. You will then realize with awe that life is worth living, and that its opportunities are too mighty to be frittered away on profitless striving.

The strenuosity of modern life is accepted by most people as ideal, but there are many who feel that the case is not proven. It is quite true that everyone should do enough to provide for his own necessities, but it is possible that the man who does more is just as much of a burden to the community as the man who does nothing. The man who does more work than is necessary makes it harder for others to do their share. A man who is capable of nothing but work is about the same use to an intelligent community as a gasoline engine, and just about as pleasant to neighbour with. It seems to me that man was meant to do more than work, that he was meant to know and enjoy. Moreover our ideas of success need to be overhauled. The man who achieves success by the exercise of cunning—business sagacity, it is usually called—is as surely a social parasite as the idler. It is quite true that the man who conducts his business so as to aid in the production and distribution of necessities earns his share of the world’s wealth as certainly as the producer, and by his executive ability may deserve a larger share, but the man whose shrewdness enables him to profit unduly by the interchange of commodities is as much a burden as a pauper; and there are some admired successful men who are as burdensome as a whole poorhouse crowded with paupers. The present tendency seems to be to urge men to work; let the profits go where they may. Work is the one thing to be desired. As a matter of fact, leisure is the one thing to be desired; we should work to win our share of it, and see to it that no captain of industry makes us do more work than we should. Work as practised by many people is simply a bad habit.

HOLIDAYING

If the chief business of taking a holiday is to get a change of air and a change of surroundings, then why travel? You can get your holiday by changing your time instead of changing your space. Now don’t get worried and imagine that I am going to try to work off some Einstein stuff on you. All I want to say is that if you get up at an unusual hour you will find everything so different that it will amount to the same thing as a holiday. The air will be different and your surroundings will be different. Of course this doesn’t apply to the amusing people who fool themselves into thinking that to save daylight they must push the clock an hour ahead and then get up with the clock. When they get up at what should be an hour earlier their whole tiresome world gets up with them. But if you happen to be living under the old dispensation—I mean under standard time—you will get a taste of the real holiday spirit if you happen to get up at half-past three or four o’clock one of these fine summer mornings. It is really worthwhile having a sleepless night so as to be awake and astir at dawn. As no sensible person is about at that hour you have the world to yourself, and even in a populous countryside you get the feeling of the wilderness. At that hour the world seems to have reverted back to nature. The little breezes that are astir at daybreak are moist and cool and wonderfully refreshing. They are not at all like the hot gusts that blow against you when the sun is up and the day’s work has begun. And at dawn the birds seem to realize that the world belongs to them. The robins begin a rhythmic chorus and the others join in as they waken. When the music is in full swing you can hear sparrows, meadow larks, blackbirds, killdeers and bobolinks; but the robins are the choirmasters. If you are thoroughly awake and alert you will realize that you couldn’t get a more complete change of air and surroundings even if you travelled hundreds of miles. But when the daylight-savers get up and start the old routine again you will find yourself back in the old workaday world.

BALDY McSPORRAN

People pay altogether too little attention to making a living and altogether too much to making money—which is a different matter entirely. The country is full of people who begrudge every cent they spend on their living. They worry through life without any enjoyments and any comforts and think they have done wonderfully well because they have money in the bank that they will never use. Perhaps if our teachers would begin by urging the beauties of right living we might live better and produce more so that we might live up to some decent standard. It is nonsense to talk of producing more than is needed for a living as if it were a duty, and, if necessary, I can quote all the sages and philosophers to support my contention.

The question of what to do with hoarded money that one doesn’t know how to spend is more serious than most people imagine. The country is full of stories that tell you how money that was saved by the penny was wasted by ungrateful heirs. How to avoid this is the problem that confronts every farmer who never learned what to do with his money except to hoard it. I never heard of but one who seemed to get at the root of the matter, but his plans were so sensible and unusual that they went wrong entirely.

Baldy McSporran was a farmer who was not satisfied with just making a living. He produced much wheat and hay and fat pigs and chop-fed steers, and as he “kept bach.” his living expenses did not cut into his earnings to any extent. He raised his own pork and potatoes and baked his own bread and having inherited his digestion from his ancestors who lived much of the time on raw oatmeal and “braxie,” he was able to stand his own cooking. In dress he was very severely simple, and his wildest extravagance was an occasional visit to the fall fair, to which he got free admission by helping a prize-winning neighbour to lead in his horses. This wouldn’t be extravagant at all if it had not been for his liking for peanuts. No matter how much he resolved to restrain himself he couldn’t resist buying a five-cent bag, but he salved his conscience a little by telling himself that it was really his dinner. By living in this way Baldy was able to save much money, and his nephews and nieces were all kind to him in ways that did not cost money, for they were all true McSporrans.

Now when Baldy grew old he gave much thought to his money and what he should do with it. Being a man of sound sense, he tried to think of some way to make it of use to himself and others. Naturally, as he would be dead, the only good he could get out of it would be a comfortable grave and an imposing tombstone, so after turning the matter over in his mind for a few years, he went to the local undertaker and bought a serviceable oak coffin that could be used in the meantime as a combination clothes press and bread-box. Then he gave the stone-mason an order for a substantial Scotch granite tombstone, on which he had his name, the date of his birth, and a modest epitaph neatly and inexpensively carved. He left a line for the date of his death, and after much worrying paid the undertaker in advance for the work of putting it in, only stipulating that if he died in May or one of the months with a short name, the stone-cutter was to pay back to his heirs twenty-five cents for each letter it fell short of September, the month with the longest name. He paid for the September dateline in case of accidents.

Having arranged matters in this way to his entire satisfaction he began to think of what he should do with the rest of his money. Then a great light dawned on him. All the McSporrans were of a saving nature; they would put his money in the bank, and he saw that all they would get from it would be good coffins and pleasant tombstones. So he decided that instead of leaving them cash he would leave them all orders for coffins and tombstones, and he spent many happy hours picking out suitable epitaphs for them. After church every Sunday he would lead one or another of his perspective heirs into the graveyard and by skilful questioning learn his taste in tombstones. Then he would close one eye, look them up and down and measure them for their coffins. He also attended all the funerals in the neighbourhood so as to keep in touch with the latest ideas in coffins. By studying an undertaker’s catalogue and consulting frequently with a stone-cutter he figured out the cost of burying all his near relatives in a respectable manner, and then got a lawyer to draw up a will that put his money in trust for this purpose. He further provided if any was left over it was to be spent in providing coffins and tombstones for McSporrans yet unborn. Then he died of old age in a quiet, inexpensive way, and they swept the bread crumbs out of his coffin and buried him.

When his will was read there was such an outcry as never was heard in the countryside before. Instead of seeing his sound wisdom, the heirs all protested that he was mad and hired a city lawyer to break the will. The trustees naturally opposed this and a series of lawsuits was started that not only ate up the whole estate but bankrupted all the McSporrans in the tribe. And yet I contend that Baldy McSporran made the only logical will I have heard of in many years. I doubt very much if Carnegie or Rockefeller will do better when the time comes for them to take their place in the long line that must now be standing before the eye of the needle through which rich men hope to enter heaven.

A FINE DAY

It doesn’t do to spend too much time in thinking about an article. If you think about it earnestly enough you will soon be beyond your depth, and then airy persiflage becomes an impossibility. I am moved to make these observations because we had some especially fine days between Christmas and the New Year, and while enjoying them I made up my mind to describe them for the benefit of poor city people who never see nature in her happier moods, and for the still poorer country people who live among scenes of beauty and never give them a thought.

But I spent too much time making observations and thinking the subject over. Before I realized what I was doing I had discovered that a fine day is more a state of mind than a meteorological condition. No day is fine unless it is contemplated by someone in a joyous, expansive, appreciative frame of mind. If I were to describe those beautiful days as they seemed to me I would simply be setting forth the fact that on those days I was particularly happy, and in accord with the world in which we live—which would be most reprehensible egotism.

Still, I am determined to have something to say about fine days. Our lives should be made up of them and our very greetings to one another when we meet on the streets is a prayer to that end. “Good-day!” we exclaim, when we see a familiar face, and because I have just been reading The High History of the Holy Grail, I know that this is equivalent to saying “God give you a good day.” When wished in all sincerity this is surely one of the finest wishes in the world, but if you listen to the way in which it is said by many people you are convinced that they have not only lost the original meaning of the phrase, but have given it a new one. They seem to be saying “Good-day—and be damned to you!” There is a modern greeting, however, that I am inclined to like even better than the ancient when it is given with sincerity. Men must meet on the street, smile, nod and exclaim in passing: “It’s a fine day!” If you get hold of the idea that a fine day is largely a state of mind you will realize that it is equivalent to saying “I am entirely happy,” and the wish is implied that you may be the same. I have noticed that men of an habitually cheerful disposition use this form of greeting, no matter what the weather may be like. You may meet them in a sleet storm or a driving blizzard, and they will shout above the howling of the wind: “A fine day!” If they really mean and feel it you realize instantly that the day has some fine qualities that you have been overlooking, and for a little while at least you feel the better for the meeting. Men of this kind seem to be power stations of sunshine, and they go about cheering the world, whatever the weather reports may be like.

It would not be hard to put together quotations from poetry to show that men are often at variance with the accepted notions of fine or disagreeable days. The remorseful and crime-sodden Macbeth exclaims: “I ’gin to grow aweary of the sun.”

Most people seem to feel that if the sun is shining they can make a shift to be happy. In fact they seem to feel that sunshine is absolutely necessary to fine weather, but Byron may be quoted to the contrary. In his rumbling Spenserian stanzas from “The Storm” he exults:

At such a time as that many of the people I know would have their heads hidden under the bedclothes and would be shivering with fright. But the poet had the right state of mind, and the thunderstorm in the Alps was music to him. Most people seem to achieve the right state of mind most easily on still, sunshiny days, when the air is balmy and vibrant with warmth. It is on such days that the birds and the wild things seem most in accord with nature, and we, doubtless, inherit a primitive state of mind that enables us easily to be in accord with nature as such times. Yet there seem to be occasions when even the birds can rise superior to weather conditions. Who that has slept in the spare bedroom of country houses has failed to admire the pillow shams with a couple of sparrows embroidered in a snow storm, and chirping the lines,

That even men can rise superior to blustery conditions is attested by the old Fourth Reader, where the sailor is represented as rejoicing in

But there is no end to the quotations that might be advanced to show that either a fine day or a bad day is simply a state of mind.

A MESSAGE FROM OUTER SPACE

Speaking of messages from the sun, why are we not hearing something about them? They are perhaps the only real messages from outer space. But man has largely lost the art of hearing and interpreting them. He has become too wise and purposeful to heed anything primitive and instinctive. He can understand the messages of the stockticker that records the financial possibilities of the crop prospects, but he cannot catch the whisper that comes to every vital seed and makes a crop possible. The heartening messages of the sun are felt and understood by every bird and beast and flower in all the world. The sea hears them and the invisible tides of the air.

Some young man’s fancy may lightly turn to thoughts of love when the sun’s message begins to throb through space, but as a race we have largely lost interest in the sun. We hug our steam radiators and try to make our dark offices sanitary while all the great outdoors invites us to bask in the sunshine, breathe sun-sterilized air and listen to the wordless gossip of the world’s great business. In a few weeks, perhaps a few days, every stream will be lisping the messages the sun has sent to it about the distant sea that is the goal of its desire. Every breeze that blows from the south will tell of the command the sun has laid on the winged legions and spread wild rumours of their return. Every hidden rootlet will rouse from its winter sleep at the call of the sun and with its puny strength will swell the great efforts of the world. The air will be vibrant with messages beating like angels to every vital spark. And here are we, bothering our heads about such futilities as messages to Mars or from Mars. Suppose they could speak to us, what messages worthwhile could they send except that the sun shines on them and that the guess of the learned scientists that the planet is frozen is a foolish mistake. They have a sunshine and if they have learned to use it they are far in advance of us with our high explosives, sinister airships, and infernal submarines. But while the sun shines and water flows and grass grows we need not trouble ourselves much about other planets and their doings. I am glad that I announce the close of this contest for sugar-making time; for then the messages from the sun will be at their best and perhaps if I am very attentive I may be able to catch one here and there and heliograph it on to people who are living in darkness. As I glance from my window I see the sun over a five-foot snowdrift, but what of that? Some fine day he will whisper a message to that snowdrift—and then—and then the flowers will spring where it lies. No need to offer prizes for sun messages. Every message brings its own prize with it.

A GREATER NIAGARA

It is all very well to turn the water power of the country to the service of man, but what about the power of the sun and air that gives us the spring growth? Here is the mightiest form of waste in the world and, as yet, it has escaped the care of our conservationists. On every field there is poured a flood of energy that gives itself impartially to weed and flower and fruitful plant. The power of a thousand Niagaras is wasting all around us and we are doing nothing about it. If given the proper seed to germinate it would feed the world. Nothing can show the extravagance and indifference of nature more completely than her prodigality of the forces of life. She floods everything with life and life-energy without a care as to the result. If man were directing things he would conserve the energies of nature, but royal, indifferent nature pours her bounty on the sea no less than on the land, on No Man’s Land no less than on the fruitful fields. The just and the unjust get their equal share—which is, doubtless, a great mystery to many excellent people. This year there is a special delight in undertaking the work of the fields—the work of making use of the life force that is placed so freely at the service of man. When all the energies of the race are turned towards war and destruction it seems as if farming were the only occupation left that has any relish of salvation in it. Though the issue of the war may turn on food production and farming, they will not partake of the war’s spirit. Patience and industry are the qualities needed, and instead of the Hymn of Hate one hears the songs of the birds.

THE CERTITUDE OF NATURE

Today I am haunted by a quotation that is very sentimental, though I am not feeling a bit sentimental. Quite the contrary. But the last line of the stanza has a thought that seems wonderfully appropriate to this season, and as I do not like to spoil a literary gem by reducing it to fragments, I repeat it entire, just as my memory gives it back to me. Here it is, but please remember that the last line is the only one that appeals to me:

Summer, or rather nature, never doubts. Her wonderful work goes on without stay and without hesitation, although almost every part depends on some other part for its perfection. The apple trees put out their wonderful profusion of bloom, never doubting that at the right season the bees will appear to gather nectar and fertilize the blossoms with pollen. And the bees rear their broods in the early spring, never doubting that there will be plenty of flowers to feed them later on. All nature is incredibly interdependent. Special flowers must be visited by special insects, and in many cases these insects must have a special conformation before they can inadvertently perform the proper functions for the waiting blossoms. But in spite of this strange and apparently haphazard complexity nature never doubts. She goes on producing the different parts of her plan with a perfect faith that somehow the different parts will come together at the right time, so that all forms of life may survive and multiply. And I may as well note in passing that the same law applies to her pests and blights. The onion worms seem to know that I will plant onions, and the cabbage worms that I will plant cabbages. And the curculio and the codling moth never doubt that there will be plums and apples for their unhallowed progeny. In fact, nature seems to be bound together by an amazing faith that envelops all things—except man.

Man does not seem to get it through his head that seed-time and harvest will come every year, or else he rushes away to the city, where he will have nothing to do with them and with their burdensome toil. He alone seems unable to understand that the wealth of the world will be reproduced every season, and he wears himself out trying to “save oop.” Being without faith he is continually building towers of Babel, though he now does it with more skill than was shown by the inhabitants of the plain of Shinar. A modern great fortune is nothing more than a financial tower of Babel, built by someone who hopes to escape disaster through the power of wealth. He fondly hopes that he and his family will survive, whether the seed-time and harvest come or not. And in our financial tower-building we have a great advantage over the ancients in the material we use. There is no danger of a confusion of tongues, because money talks in all languages. But in spite of the success that attends our modern tower-building, it is every bit as futile as the monumental folly of the ancients. Most of the great fortunes of a generation ago are already as completely scattered as the bricks of Babel or the wealth of Crœsus. In spite of their imposing magnificence they are no more substantial than

And it is because men doubt and are without the faith that floods all nature that they waste their lives in this futile tower of fortune-building.

ANOTHER VIEW

From time to time we have heard talk about the humours of country life and its beauties, but until now I have never hinted at its terrors. This was because I could find no language in which to express it. Whatever I wrote seemed as commonplace as two and two make four. I knew that everybody would agree with all I had to say—and would not understand; nevertheless, I am going to say it. You cannot understand the terrors of the country unless you have been gripped by them. They come in the day as well as in the night, and in the summer more than in the winter. To me the most terrible thing in the world is the grass—the marching grass that has come down through the ages. Man has built empires and the grass has grown over them; he has built temples and the grass has grown in their aisles. The grass has grown over those who were dear to us, and it will grow over us. And this is the same grass that makes the summer laugh with beauty. Just now I am inclined to like the winter better than the summer because it hides the grass and lets man seem of some importance. Now that the snow has fallen and the birds have gone, all the life you see stirring in the country is man’s. In the summer-time the world is crowded with life and man is fighting for his. If he relaxed his efforts the weeds would choke his fields and the grass would grow in them and the trees, and in a few years there would be nothing left to show that he had ever been. In the scheme of nature civilized man seems to have no place. The infinite reproduction of life in infinite forms that seems to be the sole end of nature crowds in on him from every side, ready to overwhelm him. In the presence of nature, when life is at the full, man seems of little importance.

In this country you can see the struggle for existence everywhere. Everything from the tenderest herb to the beast of prey destroys something else so that it may live; while nature seems to exist solely for the reproduction of life she seems to value none. From the highest to the lowest each living thing is in time destroyed as unconcernedly as it was created. Natural life is an endless comedy of reproduction; an eternal tragedy of change in death. And to what end? The survival of the fittest? Nonsense! It is mere presumption on the part of any man to pretend to know which is the fit and which the unfit. Spencer coined that phrase, not Darwin, as is generally supposed, and I never think of it without feeling what a self-satisfied, bald-headed prig he was. If you say that it means the survival of the fittest for the struggle for existence you are still talking nonsense. The Tower of Siloam is falling all the time in the realm of nature, and it destroys what you would call the fit and the unfit alike. The hoof of a cow may accidentally destroy the best-equipped bug in all your fields. It has no more chance of survival than the weakest. The only thing that seems enduring in nature is life, and neither the form nor type in which it survives seems of importance. Looked at in the light of science, nature is as hideous and terrible as a nightmare. And some poet, whose name I have never learned, wrote about the time when the evolutionists were beginning to teach their doctrines:

LIFE FORCE

A few mornings ago I was aroused and humbled by the red cow. She noticed a wonderful thing that was happening in the world before I did, and gambolled around and did a cow-tango to express her emotion. We had turned the cattle out to water, and, after the red pirate had rubbed herself against a stack, almost upsetting it, and had taken a peep to see whether the granary door had been left open, she suddenly let out a little bawl—“Buh! uh”—kicked sideways with both hind legs, and began to race around the barnyard. Instantly the whole seven were frolicking and pretending to fight and expressing cow-joy in laughable antics. I do not think there is anything in nature funnier or more absurd than a happy cow. In the great scheme of things the cow is the symbol of gravity and solemnity, and when she unbends and attempts to be sportive the result is as incongruous as if the “most potent, grave and reverend seigniors” of the Senate took to playing leap-frog. In the course of her everyday life the red cow habitually looks more serious-minded than I do when meditating on the high cost of living and the injustice of special privileges; but on this particular morning she relaxed and let herself go before it dawned on me that there was any special cause for happiness in the world. When the great tides of spring swept over the world she responded instantly, while I had to rid myself of a lot of foolish cares and worries before I felt my pulses beating to the rhythm of renewed life. But before she and her clumsy fellows had finished their sprawling saraband I was awake to the great event, and feeling properly rebuked because the cows had noticed it first.

To explain the above paragraph I must now set forth a personal conviction that will be scorned by material scientists as an hallucination and reproved by churchmen as unpardonable paganism. To me all nature is as much alive as I am myself and flushed with the same life force. During the winter months this force is dormant, but in the spring it awakens and floods the world like sunshine. I do not investigate it or moralize about it. I accept it as I do the vernal warmth and the perfumed air. With the return of spring I let

The all-pervading life force, recognized by the poets, is as real and powerful and subtle as electricity. It is something

When it stirs and moves nature to mating and growing all life throbs with unreasoning happiness. It is an impalpable flame that inspires instead of consuming. Only man with his egotistic self-consciousness misses its reviving touch. Because he can reason and has will power he attempts to control nature—and misses the best that nature has to give. But the children and all childlike spirits are still at one with nature and share all her gifts. In the spring she touches them as she touches the flowers and they expand and grow. They are as happy as the singing birds and as carefree as the wandering air.

As might be expected, I could not keep out of the sugar-bush “when the sap began to stir.” There was something stirring in me and I wanted to be out in the sunshine where I could spend happy hours without thought—simply glad to be alive and aware. And yet I could not help reflecting idly it must have been in the spring of the year that the piping of Orpheus made all nature follow him. It is a myth, of course, and a pagan myth at that, but with everything about me stirring with life it did not seem so wildly improbable. The pagans had intuitions too noble to be forgotten, for did not one of them write:

Out among the trees, with the flowers stirring at my feet, I could realize the truth of this. The world of men was very far away and unimportant. In the woods there was a companionship and an activity that put to shame the feverish and purposeless life of our cities. The wise and practical may say that I was simply idling when I should have been about the business of the world, and they may wag their heads gravely at the thought of such folly. To such there is no answer to be made. They could not understand—and perhaps even our philosophers could not understand. Novalis says that there is no temple in the world but the human body. That is only a half truth. Everything in which life stirs is a temple, and while I gathered sap with automatic industry I was conscious that myriads of temples were a-building about me. And it was the men who sensed the architecture of that building who shaped the Parthenon and the great cathedrals.

The growing and building force that pervades all nature is the compelling inspiration of all art and poetry and beauty. It is a living thing, and to be conscious of it is to live to the full.

Surely there is no one so busy or careworn but he can steal a few hours in the spring to be alone with nature. And I wish to emphasize the word—alone. Nature seems to be jealous of all other companionship. Or perhaps it is because we cannot let ourselves go in the presence of others. When we go to the woods or the parks with companions someone is sure to keep up a gabble about the affairs of everyday life—the latest get-rich-quick scheme or the last shift in the political kaleidoscope. To enjoy nature you must leave all these things behind and everything that may suggest them. Go to nature as a child goes—thoughtless and open-minded. The less you seek the more you will find. Let the new leaves brush against your face and whisper to you, or throw yourself down on the grass and relax as if you were sinking to sleep. Then the searching sunshine will have its will of you, and the little winds will go about their business as if you were not there. The sky, squirrels, and birds will come near to you and accept you into the great companionship of things that are free and inspired, and you will soon feel the benign and reviving influence of your pure surroundings. I leave it to others to teach the lessons to be learned from this quiet communion with the great life force. Learn to feel it even as the cattle feel it, or even as the smallest thing that harbours a spark of the fire of life feels it, and you will be ready to learn unspeakable things.

MAN, THE DREAMER

Above all things I love a great dream. The history of human progress is the history of dreams that have come true. Watt was a dreamer who gave the world control of steam. Edison dreamed and made electricity the servant of man. But the list of the great dreamers is too long to be recapitulated here. Let it suffice there has been no great advance in civilization that did not begin with a dreamer. Surely Shakespeare had a right to exclaim:

But the world is never hospitable to dreamers. Their wonderful imaginings are laughed at until they are made practical, and then they are accepted as commonplace. There is nothing wonderful about steam or electricity or wireless telegraphy. We use them every day and they are as ordinary as knives and forks. But the man with a new dream—Haw! haw! He thinks he can do this or that for the good of humanity. Pooh! Bosh! Did you ever hear such nonsense? We never seem to learn that the dreams of today will be the facts of tomorrow. Though some dreams may be manifestly absurd, we are never safe in laughing. Almost always they have an idea back of them. We all agree in laughing at perpetual motion, and yet perpetual motion is a law of nature. Everything from the atom to the universe is perpetually in motion. Perpetual motion is the masterpiece of creation. Instead of laughing we should realize that it is the god in every man that makes him dream of achieving impossibilities.

CANADIAN HISTORY

I wonder if the history of Canada will ever be written—I mean the real history. We have volumes that are padded with extended accounts of the operations of France and England in Canada, but these afford only a side-light on the true history of the country. The work of our statesmen has been given undue prominence in order to make our history compare in weight and authority with that of older countries, and the result is far from inspiring. The simple fact is that Canada was not conquered by the sword, but by the axe, and its place among the nations is due not so much to what was said and done in legislative halls as to what was endured in the log cabins of the pioneers. On this point Dr. Goldwin Smith, in his work on Canada, wrote a just and notable passage:

It is humiliating to record the fact that in many cases even this tribute is no longer possible. Except where the descendants of the pioneers are inspired by a proper spirit of patriotism, the lowly graves are neglected and forgotten. In almost every country graveyard there are unmarked mounds, the history of whose occupants is unknown. In some cases before regular burying grounds were established, those who died were buried in the fields they had made fruitful, and when the land passed into the hands of strangers their graves were levelled by the plough.

An effort is being made in some quarters to rouse the spirit of Canadian patriotism inspired by the military history of the country, but it is doubtful if any permanent result can be achieved. In spite of our fiery colonels we are a peaceful people, descended from peaceful people, and our ideals are not those of war. It is true that men have died valiantly in battle for Canada and that those who died at Battle Hill, a few miles from where this is being written, died as heroically as if they had been at Waterloo, but the sum of their achievements is small when compared with that of the men and women who endured the slow tragedy of pioneer life. No one who has heard on winter evenings before an open fireplace stories of that age-long battle with the wilderness can doubt that in it is the true inspiration of Canadian patriotism. These stories are being forgotten. Those who could tell them from experience or as traditions are passing away. Perhaps it is impossible to gather them in adequate form, for there is a sameness about them that makes a continued recital monotonous. But underlying them all, instead of a lust for conquest and wealth, there was a hunger for homes and perhaps a racial impulse that should prove interesting to a competent and sympathetic historian. At least the writers of historical novels should find in the pioneer stories a wealth of excellent material.

Because the true conquest of Canada was peaceful, it must not be inferred that a patriotic spirit inspired by it would be lacking in heroic quality. The man who truly understands what was meant by the struggle of the pioneers is as ready to die for his heritage as if his father had won it through battle and bloodshed. To him every field that was conquered by toil is as sacred and inspiring as if it had been trampled by warring hosts, and if called upon to defend them he would not be lacking in courage and loyalty. Neither should he be lacking in the broadest imperialism, for the peace and liberty he enjoys are as certainly due to the struggles of his forefathers in the homeland as if they were recorded in the blood-stained pages of history. If it is true that

we need not be afraid to let patriotism draw its inspiration from the triumphs of peace.

If anyone of us takes the task of doing justice to the pioneers, either in history or fiction, he need not wax sentimental. As a class they were rough-and-ready adventurers, accustomed to hardship and toil from childhood and ignorant of the part they were playing in the destiny of the new world. There were, no doubt, people of refinement amongst them to whom the rough life was a grievous hardship, but most of the pioneers soon had, in the new land, much better than they had left behind. To urge them on to do the great work they performed it is just possible that they had no higher motive than to get on in the world. Nevertheless, they did their work and we are enjoying the fruits. The glimpse we get of the pioneers in the writings of Mrs. Moodie and Mrs. Jameson are far from attractive, though it must not be forgotten that their point of view was somewhat aristocratic. According to the evidence that has come down to us, the morals and manners of the early days left much to be desired. In spite of all that is recorded of the hospitality of the people, new settlers were cheated and preyed upon with a ruthlessness that would make our modern land-sharks sick with envy. In political life corruption was rampant and voters would sit on the fences around the polling booths waiting to be bought. The newspaper files and pamphlets of other days abound with virulent abuse that would not now be tolerated. In fact the politician who recently startled a soft-spoken age by describing an opponent as “that slimy eel of hell” would be regarded in the heroic period as drawing on a singularly washed-out and anaemic vocabulary. The papers of those days abound in passages that would now be regarded as unprintable. Of course, this is only one side of the picture—the rough and robustious side. On the other side we have examples of self-sacrifice and piety that are almost quixotic. It is told of one excellent family in this neighbourhood that one winter when their grandparents had paid their taxes and the interest on the land mortgage they had only one dollar left. With this they proposed to buy a little salt but a collector for the Bible Society called on them and they gave him the dollar. For months they ate their food without salt, because they had no means with which to procure a supply. Before that period was ended they must have had a keen appreciation of Job’s inquiry: “Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?” It is pleasant to tell that from the day of that pious sacrifice the fortunes of the family improved, and the third generation is now enjoying the home that they made.

THE RAISING

“Are you going to the raising?”

If not, you will miss the best entertainment the country affords. A properly-conducted barn-raising contains the excitement of a fire, the sociability of a garden party, and the sentimental delights of a summer resort hop. The young men are given a chance to show their agility and prowess and the girls are enabled to shine as hostesses. Although it is especially a function for young people, there are always enough old folks on hand to give the occasion historical colour and perspective with their reminiscences of past raisings—some of them going back to the days of log barns and houses. In “the heroic period” the best man was the one who was competent to build a corner, and anyone who examines one of the primitive buildings cannot but marvel at the skilful dovetailing done by the old-time cornerer. The modern framer, with all his tools, would find it hard to equal their work. In the traditions of those days there are stories of men who could run along a log and jump the opening left for the barn door—about fourteen feet—with a bottle of whiskey in each hand. Nowadays we have other men and other manners.

The preliminary work of a barn-raising is done in the winter months, when the timber for the frame is felled and squared. As the old-time broad-axe men who could hew to the line and turn out a stick of square timber that looked as if it had been planed have practically vanished from the earth, the posts, plates, beams, sills, girths, and girders are now squared at the sawmills. After the timber has been assembled where the barn is to be built, the framers cut it to the required lengths and make the necessary joints, mortises, tenons, braces, and rafters. The invitations for the raising are then issued, and the housewife, usually helped by her friends, begins to cook for a multitude. The best that the country affords is prepared lavishly, for a raising is always followed by a great feast.

On the day of the raising a gang of men working under the directions of the framers put together the bents and sills. The latter are usually laid on cement foundations, as most modern barns have a basement stable for horses and cows. The bents, usually four in number, consist of the posts, beams, girths, and braces. They are put together, with all joints strongly pinned and laid overlapping one another on the foundation, with the tenons on the foot of each post ready to be entered into the mortises in the sills. Early in the afternoon the crowd begins to gather. When all who are expected have put in an appearance, captains are selected, who proceed to choose sides. Then is the anxious moment for the country beau who can feel holes burning in the back of his duck shirt because of

To be chosen first or to be among the first half-dozen is an honour you could appreciate more fully if in your youth you had been chosen second man. I admit it was only second, but I was young then, and I left the country before I reached my growth. As each man is chosen, he leaves the crowd and joins the growing group about his captain. Not even Casey of baseball fame could make that short walk with more “ease and pride” than some of the country boys, and not a few of them prepare their hands for the coming fray, as he did when

When everyone has been chosen down to such riff-raff as visiting journalists and politicians, who can only be expected to help with the grunting when the lifting is being done, the real work of the raising begins. Although the rivals take opposite sides of the barn, they work together in putting up the main framework. “Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! All together now! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!”

Slowly the first bent is lifted and shored up until the pike-poles can be brought into play.

“Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!” Men with handspikes hold back the foot of each post so that the tenons may not slip past the mortises as the huge beams are being pushed up into the air.

“Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!” At last the tenons slip home and the first bent is stay-lathed in place. The girths that connect with the next bent are put in place, braced, and stayed. Then another bent is heaved up and the extending girths fitted, braced, and pinned. So to the last bent. As it swings up the excitement becomes furious. While the bent is still at a dangerous angle, men clamber up to the collar beams and begin tugging at ropes attached to the heavy plates that are being hoisted against the frame. By the time the last posts have snapped into place the ends of the plates are already on the collar beams.

“Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve! Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!” The race is on! The slanting plates are rapidly pushed high above the building. Sometimes they are liberally soaped to make them slip over the beams more easily. Now comes the spectacular act of the exciting performance. While the end of the plate is high in the air venturesome young men, anxious to make a reputation for reckless daring, shin up to the top so that they may “break” it more quickly. No sooner has it been brought down to the collar beams than it is pushed along the full length of the building. Now it must be lifted into place on the tenons at the tops of the posts.

“Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!”

The cheering suddenly changes to sharp calls and commands.

“Where’s that brace?”

“Throw me a commander!”

“Throw me a pin!”

Bang! Bang! Bang! The pins are driven home.

The main plates are pinned into place and the lighter purlines are already lying on the beams with posts fitted in and braced. Now they must be hoisted.

“Ye-ho! Hee-eeve!”

“Where’s that strut?”

Now for the rafters! They are already leaning against the main plates, with one end on the ground. Hand over hand they are pulled up, fitted into their places in the plate and laid across the rising purlines. This is the breathless end of the race. The purline is up! The rafters in place!

“All down!”

The winners spill down from the building as if they would break their necks.

“Hurrah! Hurray! Hurrah!”

The race is over; the winners rush for the tables that are spread on the lawn, and the laughter of girls and women takes the place of the hoarse yelling and cheering of the men. Under a shower of compliments the winners wash up and range around the tables, where they are waited on by the girls. The losers, who may have been only a few rafters behind, are forced to wait for the second tables. Under the influence of the feasting the excitement soon dies down and both winners and losers share in the general good humour.

Sometimes the contending sides indulge in a game of baseball if there is still time and they feel like exerting themselves after their full meal. Not infrequently the day ends with a dance—not old-fashioned square dances, but up-to-date waltzes with music provided by a graduate of some ladies’ college presiding at one of those grand pianos that appear like mushrooms after a season of good crops. The old fiddler rasping out “The Irish Washerwoman” has gone “glimmering down the dust of days that were,” with so many other country institutions.

Then comes the drive home through the moonlight along the country roads and past the sweet-smelling clover fields. As the young men are always heroic and the girls bewitching on these occasions, there is no telling how many romances take definite form at barn-raisings. What have the cities to offer in comparison with this for excitement, fun, and sentiment? Nothing—absolutely nothing!

Conscience is that within us that tells us when our neighbours are going wrong.

BUSHEL FOR BUSHEL

This is the story of Neil McAlpine of Fingal, the pioneer patriot, who saved the Talbot settlement when it was threatened by famine. It was my privilege to hear it told by Neil McAlpine’s grandson, my friend Dr. Hugh A. McCallum. It was told in a pioneer house such as Neil McAlpine knew, and I only wish that I could tell it today so that it would thrill you as it thrilled me. My version is only an echo of that splendid telling, but I am giving it because the hope of Canada and the Empire, and possibly of humanity, lies in such men as Neil McAlpine.

Neil McAlpine was one of the early settlers in the neighbourhood of Fingal. Being a man of means he farmed somewhat extensively for those days, and when market prices did not suit him he was in a position to hold his products until another season. One year the frost killed all the wheat in the Talbot settlement. Neil McAlpine had three thousand bushels in his granaries. At first he exulted in the prospect of selling the wheat profitably, but one day when he was in St. Thomas he suddenly saw matters in a new light. Word was brought to him that the local miller wished to see him. When McAlpine went to the mill, the miller said: “You have some wheat, haven’t you?”

“I have three thousand bushels.”

The miller made him an offer which startled McAlpine.

“Why!” he exclaimed, “that is more than you can get for it after it has been ground into flour. What are you going to do with the wheat?”

“I am going to sell it for seed grain to the settlers.”

It dawned on Neil McAlpine what that would mean, and as he told about it afterwards he said that the cold sweat broke out on him. His grain might be used to extort blood-money from the struggling settlers who were threatened by the menace of famine. His mind was made up at once. He hurried home and developed his plan. The next day being the Sabbath, and he being an elder of the Kirk, he dressed and went to church early. Standing beside the gate, he whispered to each pioneer as he passed through: “You can get seed grain at my place—bushel for bushel. For each bushel you take at seed-time you will bring me back a bushel after harvest.”

He made this offer to every member of the Presbyterian Church. When he went home after the service he remembered that he had made his offer only to the Presbyterians. In the settlement there were many people belonging to other churches, so he put his sons on horseback and sent them to the others—the Baptists, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Methodists. A young man stood by the gate of each church and whispered to the worshippers as they entered: “You can get seed grain from my father—bushel for bushel. For each bushel you take now you will bring back a bushel after harvest.”

On Monday morning the settlers thronged to Neil McAlpine’s. The boys were in the granary measuring out the wheat and filling the bags, and as each settler with his precious store of seed grain came past the house, Neil McAlpine (he was called Captain Storms) would hold up his cane and ask: “How many bushels?”

When they told him the amount he would add: “Remember now, bushel for bushel! For every bushel you are taking you are to bring me back a bushel after harvest.”

For three days the procession passed Neil McAlpine’s door to the granary and back until all the grain was distributed and every family in the settlement had seed wheat. This great-souled act accomplished the good man’s purpose, and to this day there are old people in the neighbourhood of Fingal who are saying: “It happened so many years before or after Neil McAlpine saved the settlement....”

Some years ago Dr. Hugh McCallum was called to Shedden, a village in the Talbot settlement, on a consultation. When returning home he was walking up and down on the railway platform waiting for the train, when he noticed a little old man keeping step with him and looking at him curiously. The big doctor stopped and said kindly: “Is there anything I can do for you?”

The little old man shook his head, then exclaimed in a brogue which I shall not attempt to reproduce: “If I didn’t know that he was dead, I would think that you was Captain Storms.”

“You mean Neil McAlpine,” replied the doctor. “Well, I am his grandson, and they say that I resemble him.”

“You are the dead spit of him.”

It then occurred to the doctor that he had a chance to hear the story of how Neil McAlpine saved the settlement from one who was alive at the time, so he asked him: “Do you remember the time when Neil McAlpine saved the settlement?”

“I do that.”

“Come and sit down and tell me all about it.”

The old man then told how his father had come from Ireland with a large family of young children and took a farm in the wilderness. The first year he was only able to clear a small piece of land in which he planted turnips, and all the following winter his family had nothing to eat but turnips. The old man who was telling the story was a young boy at the time and he remembered well how his father got the seed grain from McAlpine. When he got home with it he had also a bag of flour that Neil McAlpine had given him so that his children might have bread.

He also had a jug of buttermilk that Neil McAlpine’s wife had given him so that their mother might make scones, and a jug of molasses for the children to eat with the scones. The old man told how his mother baked at once, and he added: “I ate so much that I was so sick at four o’clock in the morning that they gave me a dose of castor-oil. Oh, I will never forget the time when Neil McAlpine saved the settlement.”

He also went on to tell that on the next day the priest came to their house in the wilderness. His mother was a proud woman when she was able to place before him the wheaten bread. When the priest saw it, he exclaimed: “Woman, woman! where did you get the wheaten bread?”

She told him how Neil McAlpine had given them the seed grain and the flour. As the priest seated himself at the table he crossed himself and said reverently: “God bless that old heretic, Neil McAlpine!”

This remark struck Dr. McCallum, and he said to the man: “You were Catholics, were you not?”

“We were.”

“But Neil McAlpine was a Presbyterian.”

Drawing himself up to his full height, the little old man exclaimed: “On Sundays he was a Presbyterian, but on weekdays he was a neighbour.”

A satirist is a man who discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says them about other people.

PUSHING THE SUN

Once when Tiger Dunlop was travelling to Windsor to visit his friend Col. Prince, he stopped to pay a visit to Col. Talbot, at the Castle of Malahide. It was in January of 1841, a time when political feeling ran high, and the two worthies spent a bibulous night discussing the questions of the day.

On the following morning when the Tiger rose he felt an urgent need of some of “the hair of the dog that bit him.” He never travelled without his famous case of twelve bottles, but on this occasion the ten that contained whiskey were empty for he had met many friends among the pioneers while on the road and even Peter and Paul which were usually filled with brandy refused to yield a drop. When he had dressed he hunted up Jeffrey, Col. Talbot’s butler, and explained to him his needs.

“I am sorry, sir, but I can’t serve you,” said Jeffrey grimly.

“Why not?”

“It is a rule in Castle Malahide that no liquor of any kind may be served before noon.”

The Tiger whistled in amazement. In his own home at Gairbraid it was the custom to begin the day with a tumblerful of neat whiskey.

“What is the reason for that?” he asked.

“Col. Talbot thinks that any man who drinks before noon will die a drunkard.”

It was in vain that the Tiger tried to cajole, bully or bribe the faithful Jeffrey into supplying his needs. Finally he asked: “Doesn’t he ever make a mistake in the time of day?”

“No, sir. His clocks are good, but for fear that they should stop or be meddled with he had an engineer who was here once mark where the shadow of the corner of the house strikes at noon, and when the sun is shining he goes by that. If you look you will find him out there watching the shadow, I am thinking he feels the need of a drink himself this morning.”

The Tiger went out quietly and sure enough there was Col. Talbot sitting on the bench watching the crawling shadow. Shaking with silent laughter Dunlop tip-toed away. In spite of his drought the situation appealed to his sense of humour. Something must be done to make Col. Talbot break his rule and he set his active mind to the task. While trying to think up a scheme he wandered to the stable where he found his servant busy with the horses.

“What have you been doing all morning?” he asked.

“I was down to the stage road to see the stage go by.”

That gave Dunlop the idea he wanted.

“Now listen to me,” he urged. “I am going up to the corner of the house to talk to Col. Talbot. In a few minutes you are to come to tell me before him that when you were down on the stage road you heard that a son and heir was born to Queen Victoria. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir! I am to tell you that a son and heir has been born to the English Crown.”

“See that you play your part well,” said Dunlop as he stalked off to discuss the beautiful but frosty January morning with his host. He found Col. Talbot shivering with cold, but intently watching the slow shadow. He was in a surly mood and that pleased his humorous guest, for it made him feel sure that his trick would succeed. It proved that the Colonel was also thirsty. He had not been making futile conversation long when his trusty servant who often helped him out in his practical jokes appeared before him.

“Well, what do you want?” growled the Tiger.

“If you please, sir, I was down to the stage road this morning and heard some wonderful news and I thought you would like to hear.”

“Well, well! Out with it and don’t stand grinning and gibbering there.”

“If you please, sir, I heard that a son and heir has been born to our good young Queen Victoria.”

“Horo!” shouted Dunlop and the loyal Col. Talbot rose to his feet and uncovered his head.

“That is surely great news!” he said fervently.

“It is a piece of news worth a toast five fathoms deep,” roared Dunlop.

Col. Talbot hesitated. “It is the rule of Castle Malahide never to serve liquor before noon,” he said ruefully.

“To the devil with all rules at such a time as this,” said Dunlop. “An heir to the British Crown is not born every day.”

“That’s true! That’s true! Perhaps it may never occur again in my lifetime. Jeffrey you may go to the cellar and bring up a couple of bottles of the best—and—and you might bring the whiskey, too, to clear our throats.”

Whereupon they emulated the miracle of Hezekiah and pushed the sun ahead two hours and retired to the dining-room to celebrate the great news, which seemed to make the Tiger uproariously happy. It was months after his departure that Col. Talbot learned the truth, when a son and heir was really born, but for once the famous rule was broken in the Castle of Malahide.

MY IMPRESSION OF THE WEST

A subscriber in Medicine Hat has asked me to write an article on the West and I hasten to comply. I do this the more gladly because I have never been west and consequently will not be handicapped by facts. Facts are the bane of entertaining writing. To begin with I want to put myself on record as liking the West. I like its enthusiasm and enterprise and also its cereal and political exports.

But I am hardly accurate in saying that I know nothing about the West. At one time I spent several days in the Immigration Department at Ottawa looking at interminable photographs of wheat fields and reading letters from successful settlers. These letters made a deep impression on me. They had a freshness of phrase and an engaging candor that charmed me. I could not help loving a country that expressed itself with so much abandon. Whenever I begin to feel word-bound from too much repressed writing for the cultured readers of the East I can hardly restrain the impulse to accept an invitation to go through the West in a private car and get my vocabulary limbered up. Of course there were sheaves of letters of the conventional kind that told how poor but industrious people had won homes for themselves. These letters are of the kind that carry conviction, but it is not because of them that I love the West.

In addition to this course of instruction I have listened joyously to the tales of those who have returned East after making good. I have bent a sympathetic ear to their accounts of hardships and successes, but it is not because of this that I love the West.

I admit that the West is the bread-basket of the Empire, the land of largest hope, and that half the truth about it has not yet been told.

But that is not why I love the West.

I believe everything that is told of that wonderful country in its immigration literature, advertisements of boom towns and the tales of promoters.

But that is not why I love the West.

I love the West because it is the last battlefield of the world’s greatest epic. I have seen the Iliad explained as symbolizing the battle between Darkness and Light. Paradise Lost unquestionably symbolizes the battle between Good and Evil, but the unwritten epic of the new world is the story of man’s war with nature.

Before the new world could be made of use to man its forests had to be destroyed and its prairies subdued to the plow. For centuries this war has been going on and now it is drawing to a close in the Last West. When the work has been completed and the last fertile acre brought under control the great singer will come and chant the epic for which we are waiting. Because the West is doing its part of the work so bravely the great epic will have a glorious climax. That is why I love the West.

Nature was not conquered by man in the old world, but by the pasturing flocks. Year by year they nibbled the seedlings, the older trees matured and died off and after the lapse of centuries tilled fields took the place of the forests. Their epics were of war and desolation, but ours is of peace and fertility. The battle of those who conquered the new world was with nature rather than with the few straggling inhabitants and if they had wars among themselves that is a matter of regret rather than of song. But the long warfare is drawing to a close and the time of peace and singing is at hand.

There are indications, however, that the ending of our great new world epic will not be all that could be desired. Judging from the political news there is danger that it may close like Paradise Lost. Those who are winning our last great battle complain that as they look back towards the East they see it

To them the mergers and trusts are monsters as destructive as any that were fabled by the poets of the older epics. But the West is full of confidence that these monsters can be overcome. That is another reason why I love the West.

COME ACROSS!

I wish I had a gift for statistics. If I had I would write a prose poem in facts and figures that would surpass the most eloquent pages of Mr. Frank Yeigh’s admirable compendium of facts about Canada. There are a few facts about Canada that need to be grasped by the people of today unless our country is to be everlastingly disgraced. I have had this matter in mind for at least ten years and don’t think I have ever referred to it in any of my contributions to the Press. It was always my intention to do some interviewing and to get this great story in a proper way, but, like everyone else in the country, I put it off. But today I happened to run across a little clipping in a newspaper, and, without looking up facts or verifying what I shall say, I propose to ask a few questions of a number of eminent people and great corporations.

To begin with, I would like to know how much the Canadian Pacific Railway would be willing to pay to any man who would show how to increase its freight by millions of tons.

And, while waiting for an answer from the CPR, I wish to ask all patriotic citizens of Canada what reward they would be willing to give to a man who would add to this country a strip of land 800 miles wide and reaching from ocean to ocean.

Then there is the Grain Growers’ Grain Company with its vast business. How much would those earnest farmers pay to a man who would increase their present output of wheat by 400,000,000 bushels in the next ten years, and have the amount go on increasing from year to year?

Speaking by and large, all these things have been done for the railroads of Canada, the Government of Canada and the farmers of Canada. Amazing as it may seem, it has been the work of one man, and a not ungrateful country provided $2000 for him in the recent estimates. Will somebody please join me in hiding my head as I record this fact?

I wish I knew more about Dr. Charles E. Saunders, Dominion Cerealist, who has retired from that office on account of ill health. Of all the men of our time, he deserves to have his name proclaimed to the world, and to have his work rewarded. As I understand the situation, by developing Marquis and Ruby wheats he has increased the wheat production of Canada to the extent suggested above. By doing this he has provided the extra freight for the CPR and the other railroads. And, oh, I must not forget, he has also increased the work and the gains of our Canadian millers. By developing a wheat that ripens almost a month earlier than the older varieties he made it possible to raise wheat 800 miles farther north than it had been raised before. That means the addition of just such a strip of wheat land to Canada.

If every farmer who has raised Marquis wheat and profited by it would contribute one head from each acre that he raised—less by far than the sparrows will take from him—the resulting bushels would sell for more than the Government has thought fit to vote to Dr. Saunders.

It seems to me, however, that the case is one that could be dealt with better by the business corporations that I have mentioned. The CPR, the millers and the grain growers have an opportunity to acquire merit by dealing with this matter in the proper spirit. I am listening to hear what response they will make.

GREATER TORONTO

I find it hard to correct my friend Frank Yeigh in public, but duty must be done. In his little book, 5000 Facts about Canada, he has made a serious mistake. He gives the population of Toronto as 522,666. It is really 522,667. The assessment officers and census takers have missed a vivacious young lady named Vanessa Brown, who is one of the permanent inhabitants of the city. She lives in a book by Miss Marjory MacMurchy, published by Macmillan & Co. She is easy to get acquainted with and the acquaintance will rapidly develop into friendship. She may be met at any age from five to thirteen, for her progressive adventures of both the body and the spirit are set forth with humour and affectionate insight. She is very whimsical, and the story of her childhood recalls the days before the telephone and automobile, when Toronto was a homelike city that had not begun to put on metropolitan airs.

I make no apology for insisting that a character in fiction should be counted in the census. As the years pass I find the fictive population of cities and countries more representative and authentic than the supposedly real personages recorded in history or mentioned in the daily dispatches. I found London, England, the most thickly populated city I ever visited, not because it is the seat of the Empire or because official statistics credit it with the largest population. Wherever I wandered I found myself watching to catch a glimpse of some character with whom I felt better acquainted than with the people of flesh and blood. Elia, Pendennis, Pickwick, Nigel, Oliphant and a thousand others were forever moving about on their adventures and could be seen with the inner sight of the imagination. In London one was at all times among old friends whose friendship could be relied on. Even in the cities of the new world there is a growing population of immortals. Diedrich Knickerbocker wanders bewildered among the skyscrapers of New York, and in Chicago, in spite of the Volstead Act, Mr. Dooley discourses wisely to his friend Hennessey. And some day I hope to take a walk along Gerrard Street, Toronto, to see if I can catch a glimpse of Vanessa Brown as she runs to get the doctor for a neighbour’s baby—running with a handicap still known to childhood—with the sole of her right shoe flapping loose. Or perhaps it might be possible to catch a glimpse of her as she was kicking the Hopkins’ door, “not once merely, but thoroughly.” This exhibition of youthful wrath led to one of her tragedies.

“ ‘My dear,’ M. Mark Brown [her father] said finally, ‘remember that you are a lady.’ She knew exactly what the sentence meant—no more playing in the big field, no more shouting, no more walking on fence tops, above all, no kicking anyone’s door. The future stretched melancholy and dull before her. What was left in life? Very little, if anything.”

It is too bad that Matthew Mark Brown, Vanessa’s father, was not sketched in more fully. In the bare outline given he strikes me as a symbol of Toronto—not of real Toronto, but of Toronto’s conception of itself—if you get what I mean. “There was always a hint of Mount Olympus about Mr. Brown.” And he was the editor of a religious weekly. Men who have come in contact with Toronto financially, politically or in a business way might be inclined to suggest a symbolic figure “red in tooth and claw,” but in spite of these things the outsider who comes into contact with the city socially or as a visitor cannot help carrying away an impression that an effort has been made to make him feel that the true symbol of Toronto would be the editor of a religious weekly. Toronto has really tried to cast the glamour of this conception of itself over the rest of the country—in spite of regrettable scandals that are even now being investigated. Moreover, Matthew Mark Brown was the incarnation of a truly Torontonian philosophy, which is hinted at in a comment by the chronicler of the doings of Vanessa. “Perhaps life would have been easier for Vanessa if the Brown philosophy had been different, but the Brown philosophy had been determined before she came into the world.” From these touches you can see that if M. Mark Brown had been sketched at full length he might in time become to Toronto what Father Knickerbocker is to New York.

THE FASHIONABLE WORLD

Is organized business economical? We have allowed every form of manufacture to be organized out of the homes and out of the small towns. Have we gained by the change? I am inclined to think not. The most noticeable result is that we have all been speeded up to a point that is almost unendurable. In order to keep step with a civilization dependent on organized business we waste our energy on all sorts of things that are not worthwhile. The great fortunes of today are mostly made by the exploitation of our follies and vanities. Our vanity in regard to the fashions places us at the mercy of the manufacturers of all kinds of apparel. Specially advertised foods educate our appetites into expensive habits. We sit up half the night and sleep in the mornings so that Rockefeller may pile up his fortune. The speed mania that has been developed during the past few years has made the fortunes of automobile manufacturers. Take almost any great line of modern industry and you will find that its chief profits are due to the folly of its patrons. And still we keep on developing new tastes and new needs and spurring ourselves on to keep pace with our own foolishness and the foolishness of everyone else. The result is a civilization that reminds one of what an American poet, George Sterling, called “A dragon in his gyre.” I don’t know exactly what that means, but as I make no pretense of understanding our present civilization, I think the quotation probably fits. And I am not ashamed to record the fact that the farther I am able to get away from the whirling (gyring or gyrating) demands of civilization the more satisfaction I find in life. But farm life seems to be getting into the same infernal “gyre” as city life, and there is no knowing where it is all going to end. Perhaps before we are done we shall be forced to organize in order to do away with organizations—and that may be the most tyrannical organization of all. In the meantime about the only thing we can do is to follow Thoreau’s example and make ourselves rich by limiting our desires.

“EDUCATE HIM!”

Since moving to the country I have been greatly impressed by the spread of education. Those who are set in authority over us seem to think that education is a remedy for everything. If the farmers are not prospering the cry goes forth, “Educate them.” When the high cost of living begins to pinch in the cities they trace the whole trouble to the farmer, and then someone yells, “Educate him!” If the farmer complains about the exactions of the middlemen, the answer invariably is “Educate him.” No matter what goes wrong, the only solution that occurs to anyone is to educate the farmer.

Once in a while a reporter representing the Press, our modern palladium of freedom, calls on a canning magnate and tells him in a deferential tone that the farmers are complaining because he is not paying enough for tomatoes on the hoof and is charging altogether too much for catsup. The great man looks at the paragraphical serf with a baleful eye, scatters some benzoate of soda on a pile of bills, puts them into his vault and snarls: “The farmer is grumbling, is he? Then ejjercate him.”

Another trembling representative of the above-mentioned palladium calls on a high financier and tells him that the farmers are complaining because the last issue of watered stock he unloaded on them had typhoid germs in it.

“Oh, they are, are they?” sneers the plutocrat as he packs a tainted million in a deposit vault and wipes his hands on his overalls. “Then why don’t you educate them?”

Up to a certain point this attitude is a good thing for the farmer. In the past he has been woefully lacking in education. But now he is being educated so thoroughly that almost any farmer I meet is ready to sit down and have a breezy chat about the way the soil particles are held together by the water menisci or to discuss intelligently the value of (PbHAsO₄) in destroying codling moths. The farmer is getting his education all right, and it is a good thing, even though it might be better adapted to his needs than it is. Moreover, if you would only increase his opportunities a little he would clamour for more education. But that is not what is bothering me.

While I sat on a corner of the voluminous report of the Department of Education meditating on these deep matters in a playful spirit I began to wonder what would happen if the farmers got to thinking, like everyone else, that education is a national cure-all. If they once get this into their heads they will want to educate a few other people who are standing in the way of progress. They will want to start night schools in Toronto and Montreal to educate a few plutocrats into right ways of thinking. Does not your imagination kindle at the prospect? The classroom would be the smoking room of the Millionaires’ Club, and the little scholars would be sitting around in large, kind-looking armchairs, smoking expensive cigars, toying with slim-necked glasses, and letting their second chins rest comfortably on the bosoms of their dress shirts. Unobtrusive imported waiters would be flitting about noiselessly, taking orders and promoting good cheer. Enter Bill Simmons, instructor in true economic doctrines. Bill’s necktie is climbing over his collar, but no one dares to smile, for he is carrying a well-oiled harness tug in his brawny right hand. Hanging the tug suggestively over the corner of the mahogany desk, he takes his place on the costly Ispahan rug, thrusts out his chin truculently, and opens the proceedings with a few well-chosen words. Thus Simmons: “The House Committee informs me that after last night’s session some of the hollow-stemmed glasses were full of cigarette ashes, and that there were cigar stubs in the silver-plated champagne coolers. Now, I want it distinctly understood that if I catch any dollar-besotted financial degenerate up to tricks like that I shall dust his swallow-tails so that he will eat his meals off the onyx mantelpiece for the next week and then I shall kick him several parasangs down the street. Do you get me?” (Oh, yes, he would talk like that. You have been educating him, you know.) “The class in elementary economics will now step forward.”

Prompt at the word Sir Philabeg McSporran, Senator Redneck, Mr. Gosh Whatawad, and a few others step to the edge of the rug, where they stand with thumbs at the seams of their trousers legs, heels together, and their toes well apart.

“Now, my pretty ones,” says Bill, “if a railroad is built under a government charter, with the assistance of the public treasury, and is then presented to the company that built it, to whom should that railroad finally belong?”

“To me,” pipes Sir Philabeg, who is a high financier and understands how to manipulate the market.

“Wrong,” says our bold bucko from lot 17, seventh concession of Alfalfa township. “It will belong to the peepul—at least sufficiently so to justify them in regulating its operations so that it will serve the best interests of the community. You may go to your seat, Sir Philabeg, and figure it out, and I will come around with the tug in a few minutes and see that you have it right.”

Then the grim instructor goes on: “What is a Big Interest?”

“A corporation that contributes liberally to our campaign fund,” says Senator Redneck, with a knowing smile.

“Wrong!” booms Simmons. “The Biggest Interest in this country is farming and after that comes labour—both engaged in producing the real wealth of the country. If anyone is to get special privileges the farmers are the ones that should get them. You may go to your seat and figure that out, and I will see you when I get through with Sir Philabeg.”

Again Simmons: “If a farmer builds a new bank barn and silo, how much should he be fined in the shape of taxes for showing so much enterprise?”

And so it would go through the whole educative evening.

Of course it is not likely that we shall ever have any educational developments along the lines suggested, but why not? If education will cure all the troubles of the farmers, why shouldn’t it be tried on a few other problems? When the promoters of mergers and combines begin to do things that are against the best interests of the country, why shouldn’t the farmers all yell: “Educate them!” When politicians become subservient to the powers that prey on the resources of the country, why shouldn’t we all start to “educate them”? It wouldn’t be so very hard. A few well-placed votes at the right time would do wonders in the way of giving light and leading to those who are making trouble for us. Let the work of educating the farmers go right on, but I hope the farmers will soon feel that they have enough and to spare, and that they can devote a few hours to educating their leaders. “Educate him” is a beautiful cry for a campaign of education of the right kind, and as there are a lot of people besides the farmers who need education, I hope that it will soon swell to a fine chorus. Don’t get mad at the people who are bamboozling you. Just give them a good dose of the medicine they are so fond of giving you. “Educate them.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

For some time past there has been much printed in the papers and much talk among plain people of the grave need of considering everything from a national point of view—for “thinking nationally.” To find out just what people understand by all this, I have been investigating quietly. I have been asking regarding important questions: “What do you think should be done?”

On no occasion have I caught a man without an answer. He might confess that he had no undershirt, but he would never confess that he was without opinions. Even if he has never given the matter a thought, he will at once extemporize settled opinions. I find that I do it myself, so I think it must be a common human instinct. We do not want to be caught mentally naked.

In answer to my questionings, I have heard many large and vague schemes for

Without exception, these comprehensive schemes all had the same defect. They could not be worked out without the exercise of unlimited, unquestioned power. From this I infer that, whatever else a man may or may not be, he is quite sure that if given a chance he would make a wise and capable autocrat. Although we claim to be a democratic people, our democracy is only skin deep. We fail to realize that it is the essence of democracy to subordinate ourselves to the will of the majority. Our instinct is to subordinate everyone else to our will. In short, if we could only

Somehow it seems so much easier to change the world to suit us than to bring ourselves into harmony with the aspirations of the world. All the great schemes that I heard for putting the world in order were “in the King Cambyses vein.” I find that when people think they are thinking nationally they are simply figuring out what they would do if they had absolute power.

Perhaps “thinking nationally” is an unfortunate phrase. It starts a man thinking what he would do if he were thinking for the nation, instead of directing his mind towards what the nation would think if it were thinking as one man. But there is little need for those who are not in places of power to grapple with that phase of national thinking. There are simple ways of thinking nationally that we can apply and should apply in our everyday lives. For instance, the man who plans how to prevent the waste of raw materials or products of any kind is thinking nationally. The nation needs all of these things, but their conservation depends on the thoughtfulness of individual citizens.

The sum of this kind of thinking will do more for the nation than all the windy schemes we talk about. Like many other important things, true national thinking is so simple that it hardly seems worthwhile. But it is everlastingly worthwhile.

JUSTICE

Another disquieting aftermath of the great war is the feverish rage of all classes to secure justice. At a time when the world is weak from the wounds of war everybody wants justice. All sorts of wrongs are being aired and immediate settlement claimed. So far as I am concerned the net result of watching this tendency is the development of a robust conviction that justice never existed in this world and that justice cannot be administered by governments or statesmen. The best they can give us is a compromise. They cannot deal justly with a rag-picker or an aggrieved apple-woman, let alone whole insurgent classes such as are fully organized and demanding justice at the present time. Justice is not a thing that can be successfully brought about by human agencies. But before the colossal injustice of the war that was forced on the world men in all countries had made compromises and adjustments that made it possible for us to get along fairly well. As we look back now we can see clearly that the things that made that old world worthwhile were tolerance and kindness rather than justice. Bad as some things were, we had made some progress in applying the Golden Rule—a precept that is entirely applicable by human beings, although justice does not appear to be. But the headlines in the papers do not suggest the Golden Rule to any extent. They deal largely with strikes and discontent and unhappy conditions of all kinds.

We are having quantity production of discontent, and it is thoroughly organized, and is being aired with great efficiency. It sometimes seems as if all the boasted advantages of our civilization were being turned into instruments to destroy us. And in the meantime, the processes of nature go on as if man were not having great wars and class movements, and were not going through the motions of building a new world—with the sole result of threatening to destroy the world we have. The seed-time and the harvest offer us their yearly opportunity—an opportunity which our forefathers were eager to accept. Whatever happens to the rest of the world, we in Canada could make our way fairly well if we would come down out of the air and emigrate to Canada. The country that our fathers won from nature is still here, and properly directed industry can still produce comfort and plenty. But we will need quantity production of common sense.

NEW WORDS

We have altogether too many words in the language already, but there are times like the present when we need a few more. If we could only have a verbal house-cleaning every once in a while and get rid of a lot of old words that have outlived their usefulness we might be more hospitable to new words that would express our ideas with up-to-date exactness. Just now I feel the need of a new word that will define a new line of political activity.

Since Bolshevism has become a world menace after the world war Ottawa campaigners are trying to make our flesh creep by pretending with eloquent shudders that our old neighbours with whom we are at present changing work at thrashings are Bolshevists. They claim to be able to see Bolshevists wherever they look. To describe this sort of thing as hypocrisy or slandering doesn’t quite express what is going on. Perhaps a new word would help us out. How would it do to coin one? Let us try. In order to make it clear I shall try to define it in dictionary fashion:

MAN AND HIS WORLD

At this time of the year we get evenings and nights that were not meant for slumber. They invite us to lowly self-communion, mental expansion and serene thoughts. After a busy day the night comes upon us unexpectedly, before the chores are done, and there is an irresistible temptation to sit in the darkness and be at peace. The warm air is heavy with the odour of ripe apples, and the shrill concert of the crickets and other innumerable insects is so steadily maintained that it seems a new phase of silence. One thin note is poured out so insistently that you almost mistake it for a ringing in your ears. Over this beats a ceaseless rhythm that rises and falls in waves of sound as if in obedience to the baton of some invisible leader. Through all rises the irregular shrilling of the crickets. This autumn concert is so constant that the ear becomes unconscious of it, except in moments of attention. Yet it seems to have an almost hypnotic effect on the mind. Sitting idly in the darkness, we find our thoughts becoming active with all manner of themes—the progress of science—the mystery of our political and business organizations—the place and fate of the individual in the scheme of things. As I sat in the darkness on such a night and gave the rein to my thoughts, a sentence from Hilaire Belloc’s Mr. Burden flashed through my mind:

This utterance, so pompous, so trite, so conclusive, and so futile, recalled the full force of the vitriolic satire in which it appears and swept me with a sense of the awful comedy of human affairs. The time and the mood seemed appropriate for taking stock of all manner of things.

The papers have been having much to say lately about science and the scientists—owing to their recent great meeting in England. According to the startling reports, these pioneers of knowledge are

The material progress of the world seems to depend strangely on their work, even though they may have in mind nothing but the problems in hand. Great industrial enterprises have been made possible by this or that discovery in chemistry or physics and yet the discoverers had no thought of business possibilities when making their experiments and before the experiments proved successful no one in the business world dreamed of the enterprises that would grow from them. Though men have worked out the problems and other men have profited, no man arranged the matter. Of course there are cases where discoveries have been made at the demand of business necessity, but that was after the ground had been broken by some pioneer who had no thought of business. Although our civilization responds quickly to the leading of science no individual is in any sense a leader. It seems as if new discoveries are being made because they are needed in some plan that is over and above us. And in spite of all that has been accomplished each individual faces life and its problems as nakedly as those who lived before our systematized science was dreamed of.

Presently the moon rose serenely and lit up the quiet scene. In the growing light much of the magic of the night disappeared or rather the coming of the moon brought a new and different magic. But I had had enough for one night. Rising to my feet, I paused for a moment to look at the moon, and in spite of all I had been thinking about, life seemed good. The perfume of ripe apples was still in the air, and the little musicians of the night were still giving their concert.

THE CHEMIST KINGS

Now that the question of disarmament is receiving so much attention it may not be out of place to call attention to a menace that is not only unchecked, but is even being encouraged. At the present time scientific investigation into the forces of nature is not being regulated in any way. Professor Hermes Trismegistus This and Professor Bungay Bacon That are working non-union hours trying to discover the secret of atomic energy or to compound more devastating poisonous gases than any yet known. When you consider the astounding discoveries that have been made in physics and chemistry during the past few years you may be excused an uneasy feeling that some of the terrific discoveries that have been hinted at may yet be realized. And, if they are, what then? It is the dream of scientific investigators to develop just such powers and governments are urging them on. Some fine morning we may wake up to find ourselves at the mercy of some mad inventor, and human history, which began with the Shepherd Kings, may end with a destructive dynasty of Chemist Kings.

When we think, we are simply trying our wings in that new state into which we shall be born.

I LEAN

As the last human being living in the feral state, free and unorganized, I am moved to pour forth my swan song. And I confess that I do it with fear—lest there should be other unorganized people in the country who are meditating a swan song. If there are, someone will be sure to try to organize us into the Ancient Order of Plucked Swans. Let no one rise and say that this fear is absurd, for I have before me as I write the annual report of the Ontario Pond of the Ancient and Honourable Order of Blue Geese. I do not single them out for mention because I wish to hold them up to criticism. I have reason to believe that the Most Loyal Gander, the Custodian of the Goslings, the Keeper of the Golden Goose Egg, and the Wielder of the Goose Quill are all estimable gentlemen and good citizens. I mention their order merely to show that the Order of the Swans is not an entirely wild suggestion on my part. But stop! A terrible thought strikes me. Probably the Order of the Swans already exists and I have escaped it. But I stand defiant! I will never be taken alive! ***** Alas, alas! That string of asterisks means that I have consulted the encyclopedia and have found that the Order of the Swan is already in existence. Here is its history in brief: A Prussian Order, founded by Frederick II, Margrave of Brandenburg in 1440, renewed by Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, in 1843. So there you are. A man cannot even suggest an order in burlesque that is not already in existence. I assure you solemnly that when I began to write this paragraph I did not know of the existence of the Ancient and Honourable Order of the Swan. What’s the use! O, What’s the use!

This passion for organization first forced itself on my attention early in the war. No one seemed to be able to do anything without forming an organization—and some of them were not able to do anything after they were organized. They just huddled together and passed resolutions. If I knew more about biology I think I might demonstrate that this passion for organization reveals a well-defined case of reversion—the persistence of revival of an outgrown tendency. I seem to remember that evolution progressed by the grouping of cells into organisms—from a state of homogeneity to a state of heterogeneity. This tendency of cells to develop organisms persisted until the self-conscious human individual was produced. Self-consciousness marks the highest point that cell organisms can reach, but men with amoeboid minds still feel the old evolutionary urge and go about groping for someone that they can cling to. The result is a loss of individual initiative that cannot help being hurtful to the race.

Lest anyone should think that my attitude is that of individualism gone mad, I proclaim my adherence to co-operation, which is an entirely different thing from organization as generally understood. Men can co-operate and advance civilization without losing their individuality. Already co-operation has achieved marvellous things for mankind. It is even developing under the guise of business—as in banking and life insurance. In their present day development banking and insurance are essentially co-operative and only lack a little more vigorous individuality on the part of the plain people to make them entirely co-operative. But those grimly managed institutions have nothing in common with the Order of the Plucked Swan or the Order of the Wild Cow or any of the other sentimental organizations that are making humanity ridiculous. When I read the propaganda of some of these new-fangled organizations and meditate on what they are trying to save us from, or trying to accomplish for us, I begin to repeat Kipling’s stanzas:

Even as the monkeys clung together by their tails a lot of people are clinging together by organizing. They organize because they want to lean on someone. Because of this I suggest that instead of using as their motto the high German Ich Dien they adopt the plain Anglo-Saxon I lean. When I meditate on these innumerable organizations I begin to think better of the Bankers’ Association. It at least has nothing mushy about it. Quite the contrary.

Set even a realist to write autobiography and he instantly becomes an idealist.

WORLD SIZE

I don’t know how these world problems affect other people, but they drive me right back to my own affairs. They make me much more interested in the little everyday problems at home. The world shortage of fuel makes me much more interested in the winter firewood and in taking care of the woodlot so that people who live on this farm in the future may have their own supply of fuel. I am afraid that the unprogressive spirit of my pioneer ancestors has fallen upon me, for instead of wanting to keep step with the gaudy world organizations that are buzzing—or going out of gear—everywhere, I am becoming more and more interested in making a farm home that is as nearly self-sustaining as possible. There is no immediate thought of starting the spinning wheel going again and hunting up a loom that I know of, but to see plentiful fleeces on the backs of sheep gives me a sense of security. The raw materials for all our necessities are right at hand—including the raw materials of contentment or happiness. A day of sunshine can make the joy of life effervescent. And even a rainy day can be cheery if the wood-box is full and the larder is not empty—and if there is health. About the only world problem in which I am greatly interested is the maintenance of law and order. Not that I place too high a value on law. The ideal would be to have so high a respect for order that law would not be necessary—but it is a little too much to expect that just yet. We must have law, but let us have it in moderation. We have had too much law. I am not thinking so much of the laws on the statute books that are administered by the Justice of the Peace, but of the social and highly speeded economic laws that have been keeping us all on the jump. Efficiency has become a law that it is perhaps too early for one to dare to blaspheme, but I am living so near to wasteful, inefficient, illogical nature that I am willing to let efficiency go into the discard with the world problems—especially as I can see that in the end nature is so miraculously efficient when regarded from the proper point of view. And man-made efficiency is so tragically inefficient.

DONALD BAN ON CHRISTMAS

Donald Ban took a chair beside my desk, pulled a piece of paper covered with figures out of his pocket and opened up. “Do you ever do any ciphering nowadays?” he asked.

“I do not,” I answered. “But what on earth have you been figuring on?”

“I have been trying to figure out just how long it is going to take the world to get civilized.”

“How far did you get?” I asked, with scornful incredulity.

“I got far enough to get a glimpse of hope,” he replied, cheerfully. “Though at the beginning it looked pretty black.”

“What facts have you got to base your figures on?”

“Christmas Day and its history. Christmas Day is the one day in the year when people live as civilized beings should. They try to drive all unhappiness from the world, to see that everyone is clothed and has enough to eat. It is the day of good will, when the Golden Rule is put in practice. And did you ever stop to think that it has taken the world nineteen hundred and nineteen years to civilize that one day? I started out by figuring that if it took that many years to civilize one day it would take 698,995 and three-quarter years to civilize the other three hundred and sixty-four and one-quarter days. That looked pretty hopeless. Then I remembered that the Puritans, both in England and the United States, prohibited the celebration of Christmas, so that it can’t be said that even one day was civilized until one hundred years ago. But since then we have developed the Christmas holidays, about ten days when the spirit of good will prevails. So this is the way the question stands: One day became civilized in about eighteen hundred years and nine more were made decent enough to pass for civilized in a hundred years. What I can’t figure out is just what rate we should expect civilization to spread at over the other days, now that the change has started. The hard thing was to make the start. We went about ten times as far in the last hundred years as we did in the eighteen hundred years before that. If that ratio of increase is kept up we should have the whole year civilized in the next hundred years, or much sooner. What do you think?”

THE NEW YEAR

The old year ended with a rain storm that was as welcome as a shower in June. Cisterns are replenished and ponds are filled and the rigour of our winter drought is broken. Because the wind was roaring in the elms and rain was beating on the roof, I took down the volume of Coleridge’s poems and read again the “Ode to the Departing Year.” It was written in a time not unlike the present—when the world was shaken by the comparatively mild unpleasantness of the French Revolution. But it is worthy of note that the subjects of debate were different. In Coleridge’s day there was much talk of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and the other great ideas that fired generous souls with the hope for the future. Today our talk is all of mandates, reparations, exchange, credits—words that would defy the skill of Milton even though he ventured to weave into a sonnet such unpromising names as

When you consider the words with which a poet of the present would be obliged to deal you would not wonder that the troubled days through which we are passing have received so little poetical expression. On reading Coleridge’s poem I found myself more interested in the year that is beginning than in the one that is ending. In publishing what follows I shall not be so absurd as to apologize for the comparison I seem to invite. It is offered merely as the expression of a mood induced by reading a great poem at an appropriate time.

BEYOND TIME AND SPACE

The high and mendacious courtesy peculiar to an old civilization may be of profound interest to the student of manners but for the unsophisticated colonial it has many grievous pitfalls. People of the better sort not only bear criticism of their methods and institutions but seem to invite it with a meekness that leads the inexperienced to believe that the British inherit the earth by virtue of the third beatitude. I freely confess that at first I fell—as did thousands of my predecessors—and expressed views on things in general with a joyous ferocity that soon won me a number of attached enemies. Having this in mind I have resolved to expend what remains of my missionary energy along abstract lines where I will be unlikely either to offend—or amuse. For this reason I propose to devote some attention to Time and his burly brother, Space, who have been before the world so long that they may now be regarded as public characters. As every philosopher knows that the civilization of a country depends on the terms on which people live with them, I need make no apology for calling attention to their present condition. Indeed, I feel that the matter is for the moment more urgent than the appreciation of eggs.

Not only in London, but throughout the Empire clever people are now annihilating Space in order to save Time. Why they do this passes my understanding, but the results of my investigations may possibly fall into competent hands and cause some action to be taken before we suffer the incomprehensible calamity of having these two useful abstractions utterly destroyed.

Some obscure philosophers incline to the opinion that man’s enmity to Time and Space dates from the moment that he, or the protoplasmic cell or egg of which he is a lineal descendant, first discovered that he had an appetite. They hold that he began annihilating Space in a hurry to get his first meal. When this was eaten, he discovered that Time stood between him and his next period of gustatory delight, and with the simple directness of his nature, proceeded to kill him. Apparently the result was pleasing, for ever since, as nearly as our acutest thinkers can determine, annihilating Space and killing Time have been man’s favourite occupations between meals.

It is true that we find traces here and there of men who improved Time with such effect that even we Time killers call them immortal; but as no one nowadays emulates their achievements I am forced to admit that the improvement of Time is one of the lost arts. And it seems to me to have been the greatest of all, the one on which all the others were based, but it has been lost so long and so entirely that I doubt if it would now be recognized if in any of our researches we chanced to stumble on it. Yet if an examination of all the facts of history should enable us to recover and know the art of improving Time, all of Time that remains would be well spent in the labour. Religion would renew its promises, Philosophy would at last have a foundation, Life would regain its hope, and every art and deed of man would be the true expression of his soul. How, after the art of improving Time had once been discovered, any man could possibly devote himself to killing Time, must ever remain one of the darkest of mysteries.

As might be expected with so practical an animal as man, the business of killing Time as well as the art of annihilating Space has been organized and made a matter of profit, and now for a very trifling outlay you can have Time dispatched decently and expertly. Among the most skilled and popular of assassins are the writers. They have acquired the art of producing material that will render the mind unconscious to the passage of Time for any desired number of hours and leave nothing that can possibly be turned to profit, that will stimulate intellectual or spiritual growth. These Time assassins are now numerous and prosperous, and their work can be found wherever printed matter is for sale. Each has an individual recipe and all of them are effective. Before it was so thoroughly established as it now is that man’s chief purpose in life is the killing of Time, writers of this class were kept within bounds by the scourge and the block and other drastic forms of criticism, but now criticism itself has simply become another means of killing Time.

But although literature has become so useful in this respect we must not overlook the assistance it receives from pictorial art. All books and publications are now so carefully produced that even the newsboys in the street will tell you that though you may be unable to read, you can still kill Time by looking at the pictures. With it as with literature the word has gone forth that its sole end is to please, and everywhere through the happy world is heard the creak of stretching canvasses. Besides, there is the scratching of busy pens on Bristol boards, and every day new mediums for the production of pleasing pictures are being discovered. Artist after artist develops his recipe and individual technique, and students flock to him so that they too may learn to please.

It is true, however, that there are still a chosen few, whom the prosperous Time assassins scorn for their foolishness, who regard pictorial art as one of the mediums used for the promulgation of eternal truth in forms of beauty in the days before the art of improving Time was wholly lost. These misjudged persons devote themselves to the enigmatic Old Masters who will not reveal their hearts to us without study and who sometimes give us the disturbing feeling that under their beautiful forms and colours there are elusive meanings that relate them to the infinite.

But of all the arts devoted to the destruction of Time, none has attained a higher efficiency than the dramatic. Embracing as it does the literary, pictorial and musical arts, and adding to them all their own resources, it has been developed to a point where the entertainment it provides is never in any danger of blundering into anything deep or disquieting. Any evening in every city or town of considerable size facilities are offered for killing Time that are simply unrivalled. The powerful art that in other days made the drama great and purifying has given way to the pleasing artifice, and any “aggregation” that you care to patronize may be depended upon to kill a couple of hours “while you wait” for a modest consideration. But here I must call a halt. If I went on to speak of the excellent work in the way of killing Time that is being done by musicians, lecturers, popular preachers, educationists and others who are worthy of honourable mention in this connection, I would annihilate more of Space than is now at my disposal. And speaking of Space reminds me that as yet I have not given his case the attention it deserves.

When I come to the consideration of Space, I feel as if in the presence of a martyr. Not only is he forced to carry the burden of material heaped upon him by the Time assassins, but he is constantly being annihilated by the persons who are trying to save Time and hold to the opinion that the best way to accomplish this is to annihilate Space. These earnest people have already made such progress that a man can now go to a place and back so quickly that it is hardly worth his while to have gone, and in the transmission of news such perfection has been attained that many things that happen on the other side of the earth are announced here with appropriate headlines, even before they happen.

Once when I was killing Time in a desultory way, the question suddenly came to me, “What would be the result if Time and Space should be totally destroyed?” As the pursuit of this idea promised amusement, I abandoned myself to it, with the result that I saw a vision.

The Last of the Wise rose in his solitary watch tower and cried aloud to all the world: “Time shall be no more.”

I looked forth and before me I saw Time, withered and decrepit, staggering forward with eyes fixed upon Eternity. While he walked the men of all nations crowded about him, and each in his different way added to his distress. Authors read to him, artists held pictures before his bleared eyes, musicians discoursed trivial music to his dull ears, actors, orators and pulpiteers declaimed and postured, dancers danced, fighters fought, gamblers laid bets as to how long he would endure, and the folly of all seemed to increase as his step became slower. Again the Last of the Wise rose in his tower and cried to all the world: “The death of Time is at hand. Would you bury him with due honour? If so, you must make the solemn preparations and have the funeral itself before he dies; for when Time is dead all your sports must of necessity end.”

The multitude raised a joyous shout, for funerals have ever been a pleasing means of killing Time, and it suited the humour of the idle mob to kill Time with his own funeral. They immediately reversed the scythe and bore before him a catafalque adorned with all the beauties that idleness could suggest. Then the crowd formed into a procession and marched forward towards Eternity. At first I was surprised and pleased to see that so many donned the garb of mourners, but presently I noticed that their loud ululation was all because “Time is money.” For this reason, and for this only, they sorrowed to see him die, but I could not join their sorrow, for they were of the people who can make no use of money except to leave it to their descendants who use it to kill Time in idle ways.

After the chief mourners came all the members of fashionable society, men and women who had devoted every hour to the killing of Time and now that his death was about to be accomplished, still looked unutterably bored, for they knew not what they desired. They were followed by the members of the theatrical profession, actors, acrobats, dancers and those who torture Time to death in the music halls. And close upon the heels of these, crowded the happy practitioners of all the fine arts. In the front ranks I saw many familiar faces, and as might be expected, they all seemed to feel distressed at the company they were in. The realists of all kinds thought themselves of the Eternal, and argued that the romanticists should be the representative Time assassins; but when they appealed for justice, they were forced to appear as even more prominent than the others because they had suggested problems in their productions that gave material for the further killing of Time in conversations. The remainder of the procession was made up of men of all conditions from figurehead kings to street-corner loafers, and all the while, in the twilight of expiring Time, the evening papers issued extras telling of the progress of the strange funeral. At last while I was noting the many marvels of this procession, I became aware of the thunder of machinery on every hand, the crackle of electricity and the snoring of steam while mighty airships flapped overhead.

“What are these?” I asked the Last of the Wise.

“These,” he replied, with a grim smile, “are the annihilators of Space who hope to save Time. Have a care.”

While he spoke they closed upon us from every dimension of Space and in a moment all had vanished. Time and his destroyers and the annihilators of Space with their wonderful inventions, all were gone. To increase my wonder, I found myself in the midst of a bewildering phantasmagoria. As nearly as might be comprehended I saw that all about me was at once Everywhere as well as Everywhen. In that awful moment, standing in the Infinite, upheld by the Eternal, I realized that man and his needs are as the dust-motes driven by the invisible whirlwind and once again as in sheerest moments of mortal meditation, I was conscious of a Supreme Mind brooding thoughts of phantasmal vastness.

“The Time and Space thou hast seen destroyed,” said my mentor, “were but the limitations of your mind and had no outward existence. To those who regard Time and Space as outward and real, they are real, and those who strive to destroy them, they will destroy. But to all who had raised their hope to the Infinite and Eternal, they are neither destroyers nor to be destroyed but shadows that veil the too ardent truth lest it blind our vision. Look now into your own mind where Time and Space have their only existence.”

I bowed my head in reverent meditation, and behold, Time was with me again in the fullness of his youth, and Space was once more flooded with the life-giving sunlight of Heaven.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books and Pamphlets by Peter McArthur

Five Sonnets. privately printed, N.Y., 1899.

Lines. privately printed, N.Y., 1901.

To Be Taken With Salt: Being an Essay on Teaching One’s Grandmother to Suck Eggs. London, Limpus Baker & Co., 1903.

The Ghost and the Burglar. N.Y., McArthur and Ryder, 1905.

The Sufficient Life. N.Y., Long Island Loan and Trust Co., 1906.

The Prodigal and Other Poems. N.Y., Mitchell Kennerley, 1907.

In Pastures Green. London, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1915.

The Red Cow and Her Friends. N.Y., John Lane Co., 1919.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier. London, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1919.

The Affable Stranger. Toronto, Thomas Allen, 1920.

The Last Law—Brotherhood. Toronto, Thomas Allen, 1921.

Stephen Leacock. Toronto, The Ryerson Press, 1923.

Unselfish Money. Waterloo, The Reinsurance Co., n.d.

The Deep Waters. Lighthouse Flashes. Waterloo, The Ontario Equitable Life and Accident Insurance Co., n.d.

A Chant of Mammonism. Waterloo, The Ontario Equitable Life and Accident Insurance Co., n.d.

The Anchor Post. Waterloo, The Ontario Equitable Life and Accident Insurance Co., n.d.

The River of Gold. Waterloo, The Ontario Equitable Life and Accident Insurance Co., n.d.

Around Home. Toronto, The Musson Book Co., 1925.

Familiar Fields. Toronto, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1925.

Friendly Acres. Toronto, The Musson Book Co., 1927.

Around Home (AH); The Affable Stranger (AS); Friendly Acres (FA); Familiar Fields (FF); In Pastures Green (PG); The Red Cow and her Friends (RC); The Globe (G); Ourselves (O).

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

The Acknowledgements and Introduction sections by Alec Lucas (1913-2003) can not be included due to copyright considerations.

[The end of The Best of Peter McArthur by Peter McArthur.]