Uncle Sam's emancipation Earthly care, a heavenly discipline ; and other sketches |
A Scholar's Adventures in the Country. |
 | Uncle Sam's emancipation |  |
A Scholar's Adventures in the Country.
“If we could only live in the country,” said my
wife, “how much easier it would be to live.”
“And how much cheaper!” said I.
“To have a little place of our own, and raise
our own things!” said my wife: “dear me! I am
heart-sick when I think of the old place at home,
and father's great garden. What peaches and
melons we used to have—what green peas and
corn! Now one has to buy every cent's worth of
these things—and how they taste! Such wilted,
miserable corn! Such peas! Then, if we lived
in the country, we should have our own cow, and
milk and cream in abundance—our own hens and
chickens. We could have custard and ice cream
every day!”
“To say nothing of the trees and flowers, and
all that,” said I.
The result of this little domestic duet was
that my wife and I began to ride about the city of
— to look up some pretty interesting cottage
Country residences near the city we found to
bear rather a high price; so that it was no easy
matter to find a situation suitable to the length of
our purse; till, at last, a judicious friend suggested
a happy expedient—
“Borrow a few hundred,” he said, “and give
your note—you can save enough very soon, to
make the difference. When you raise everything
you eat, you know it will make your salary go a
wonderful deal further.”
“Certainly it will,” said I. “And what can be
more beautiful than to buy places by the simple
process of giving one's note—'tis so neat, and
handy, and convenient!”
“Why,” pursued my friend, “there is Mr. B.,
my next door neighbour—'tis enough to make one
sick of life in the city to spend a week out on his
farm. Such princely living as one gets; and he
assures me that it costs him very little—scarce
anything, perceptible, in fact!”
“Indeed,” said I, “few people can say that.”
“Why,” said my friend, “he has a couple of
peach trees for every month, from June till frost,
that furnish as many peaches as he and his wife
grapes, apricots, &c.; and last year his wife sold
fifty dollars worth from her strawberry patch, and
had an abundance for the table besides. Out of
the milk of only one cow they had butter enough
to sell three or four pounds a week, besides abundance
of milk and cream; and madam has the butter
for her pocket money. This is the way country
people manage.”
“Glorious!” thought I. And my wife and I
could scarce sleep all night, for the brilliancy of
our anticipations!
To be sure our delight was somewhat damped
the next day by the coldness with which my good
old uncle, Jeremiah Standfast, who happened
along at precisely this crisis, listened to our
visions.
“You'll find it pleasant, children, in the summer-time,”
said the hard-fisted old man, twirling
his blue checked pocket handkerchief; “but I'm
sorry you've gone in debt for the land.”
“Oh! but we shall soon save that—it's so much
cheaper living in the country!” said both of us
together.
“Well, as to that, I don't think it is to city-bred
folks.”
Here I broke in with a flood of accounts of
Mr. B.'s peach trees, and Mrs. B.'s strawberries,
butter, apricots, &c., &c.; to which the old gentleman
listened with such a long, leathery, unmoved
quietude of visage as quite provoked me, and gave
me the worst possible opinion of his judgment. I
was disappointed too; for, as he was reckoned one
of the best practical farmers in the county, I had
counted on an enthusiastic sympathy with all my
agricultural designs.
“I tell you what, children,” he said, “a body
can live in the country, as you say, amazin' cheap;
but, then, a body must know how”—and my uncle
spread his pocket handkerchief thoughtfully out
upon his knees, and shook his head gravely.
I thought him a terribly slow, stupid old body,
and wondered how I had always entertained so
high an opinion of his sense.
“He is evidently getting old!” said I to my
wife; “his judgment is not what it used to be.”
At all events, our place was bought, and we
moved out, well pleased, the first morning in
April, not at all remembering the ill savor of that
day for matters of wisdom. Our place was a
pretty cottage, about two miles from the city, with
was no lack of winding paths, arbors, flower borders,
and rose-bushes, with which my wife was
especially pleased. There was a little green lot,
strolling off down to a brook, with a thick grove
of trees at the end, where our cow was to be
pastured.
The first week or two went on happily enough
in getting our little new pet of a house into trimness
and good order; for, as it had been long for
sale, of course there was any amount of little repairs
that had been left to amuse the leisure
hours of the purchaser. Here a door-step had
given way, and needed replacing; there a shutter
hung loose, and wanted a hinge; abundance of
glass needed setting; and, as to the painting and
papering, there was no end to that; then my wife
wanted a door cut here, to make our bed-room
more convenient, and a china closet knocked up
there, where no china closet before had been.
We even ventured on throwing out a bay window
from our sitting-room, because we had luckily
lighted on a workman who was so cheap that it
was an actual saving of money to employ him.
And to be sure our darling little cottage did lift
and furbishing. I got up early every morning,
and nailed up the rose-bushes, and my wife got
up and watered the geraniums, and both flattered
ourselves and each other on our early hours and
thrifty habits. But soon, like Adam and Eve in
Paradise, we found our little domain to ask more
hands than ours to get it into shape. “So,” says I
to my wife, “I will bring out a gardener when I
come next time, and he shall lay it out, and get
it into order; and after that, I can easily keep it
by the work of my leisure hours.”
Our gardener was a very sublime sort of a
man—an Englishman, and, of course, used to laying
out noblemen's places, and we became as grasshoppers
in our own eyes, when he talked of Lord
this and that's estate, and began to question us
about our carriage-drive and conservatory, and we
could with difficulty bring the gentleman down to
any understanding of the humble limits of our expectations—merely
to dress out the walks and lay
out a kitchen garden, and plant potatoes, turnips,
beets, and carrots, was quite a descent for him.
In fact, so strong were his æsthetic preferences,
that he persuaded my wife to let him dig all the
and to lay it out into divers little triangles,
resembling small pieces of pie, together with circles,
mounds, and various other geometrical ornaments,
the planning and planting of which soon
engrossed my wife's whole soul. The planting of
the potatoes, beets, carrots, &c., was intrusted to
a raw Irishman; for, as to me, to confess the
truth, I began to fear that digging did not agree
with me. It is true that I was exceedingly vigorous
at first, and actually planted with my own
hands two or three long rows of potatoes; after
which I got a turn of rheumatism in my shoulder
which lasted me a week. Stooping down to plant
beets and radishes gave me a vertigo, so that I
was obliged to content myself with a general superintendence
of the garden; that is to say, I charged
my Englishman to see that my Irishman did his
duty properly, and then got on to my horse and
rode to the city. But about one part of the matter
I must say I was not remiss—and that is, in
the purchase of seed and garden utensils. Not a
day passed that I did not come home with my
pockets stuffed with choice seeds, roots, &c., and
the variety of my garden utensils was unequalled.
a hoe, rake, or spade, great or small, that I did
not have specimens of; and flower seeds and bulbs
were also forthcoming in liberal proportions. In
fact, I had opened an account at a thriving seed
store; for when a man is driving a business on a
large scale, it is not always convenient to hand out
the change for every little matter, and buying
things on account is as neat and agreeable a mode
of acquisition as paying bills with one's note.
“You know we must have a cow,” said my wife,
the morning of our second week. Our friend the
gardener, who had now worked with us at the
rate of two dollars a day for two weeks, was at
hand in a moment in our emergency. We wanted
to buy a cow, and he had one to sell—a wonderful
cow, of a real English breed. He would not
sell her for any money, except to oblige particular
friends; but as we had patronized him, we should
have her for forty dollars. How much we were
obliged to him! The forty dollars were speedily
forthcoming, and so also was the cow.
“What makes her shake her head in that
way?” said my wife, apprehensively, as she observed
the interesting beast making sundry demonstrations
and gentle.”
The gardener fluently demonstrated that the
animal was a pattern of all the softer graces, and
that this head-shaking was merely a little nervous
affection consequent on the embarrassment of a
new position. We had faith to believe almost
anything at this time, and therefore came from
the barn-yard to the house as much satisfied with
our purchase as Job with his three thousand
camels and five hundred yoke of oxen. Her quondam
master milked her for us the first evening,
out of a delicate regard to her feelings as a
stranger, and we fancied that we discerned forty
dollars' worth of excellence in the very quality of
the milk.
But alas! the next morning our Irish girl came
in with a most rueful face: “And is it milking
that baste you'd have me be after?” she said;
“sure, and she won't let me come near her.”
“Nonsense, Biddy!” said I, “you frightened
her, perhaps; the cow is perfectly gentle;” and
with the pail on my arm I sallied forth. The
moment madam saw me entering the cow-yard,
she greeted me with a very expressive flourish of
her horns.
“This won't do,” said I, and I stopped. The
lady evidently was serious in her intentions of
resisting any personal approaches. I cut a cudgel,
and putting on a bold face, marched towards her,
while Biddy followed with her milking-stool. Apparently,
the beast saw the necessity of temporizing,
for she assumed a demure expression, and
Biddy sat down to milk. I stood sentry, and if
the lady shook her head, I shook my stick, and
thus the milking operation proceeded with tolerable
serenity and success.
“There!” said I, with dignity, when the frothing
pail was full to the brim. “That will do,
Biddy,” and I dropped my stick. Dump! came
madam's heel on the side of the pail, and it
flew like a rocket into the air, while the milky
flood showered plentifully over me, in a new
broadcloth riding-coat that I had assumed for the
first time that morning. “Whew!” said I, as
soon as I could get my breath from this extraordinary
shower-bath; “what's all this?” My wife
came running toward the cow-yard, as I stood
with the milk streaming from my hair, filling my
eyes, and dropping from the tip of my nose! and
she and Biddy performed a recitative lamentation
a Greek tragedy. Such was our first morning's
experience; but as we had announced our bargain
with some considerable flourish of trumpets
among our neighbours and friends, we concluded
to hush the matter up as much as possible.
“These very superior cows are apt to be cross;”
said I; “we must bear with it as we do with the
eccentricities of genius; besides, when she gets
accustomed to us, it will be better.”
Madam was therefore installed into her pretty
pasture-lot, and my wife contemplated with pleasure
the picturesque effect of her appearance reclining
on the green slope of the pasture-lot, or
standing ancle-deep in the gurgling brook, or reclining
under the deep shadows of the trees—she
was, in fact, a handsome cow, which may account,
in part, for some of her sins; and this consideration
inspired me with some degree of indulgence
toward her foibles.
But when I found that Biddy could never succeed
in getting near her in the pasture, and that
any kind of success in the milking operations required
my vigorous personal exertions morning
and evening, the matter wore a more serious aspect,
It is very well to talk of the pleasures
of the milkmaid going out in the balmy freshness
of the purple dawn; but imagine a poor fellow
pulled out of bed on a drizzly, rainy morning, and
equipping himself for a scamper through a wet
pasture-lot, rope in hand, at the heels of such a
termagant as mine! In fact, madam established
a regular series of exercises, which had all to be
gone through before she would suffer herself to
be captured; as, first, she would station herself
plump in the middle of a marsh, which lay at the
lower part of the lot, and look very innocent and
absent-minded, as if reflecting on some sentimental
subject. “Suke! Suke! Suke!” I ejaculate
cautiously, tottering along the edge of the marsh,
and holding out an ear of corn. The lady looks
gracious, and comes forward, almost within reach
of my hand. I make a plunge to throw the rope
over her horns, and away she goes, kicking up
mud and water into my face in her flight, while I,
losing my balance, tumble forward into the marsh.
I pick myself up, and, full of wrath, behold her
placidly chewing the cud on the other side, with
the meekest air imaginable, as who should say,
swamp and bog furiously, resolving to carry all
by coup de main. Then follows a miscellaneous
season of dodging, scampering, and bo-peeping
among the trees of the grove, interspersed with
sundry occasional races across the bog aforesaid.
I always wondered how I caught her every day,
when I had tied her head to one post and her
heels to another, I wiped the sweat from my brow
and thought I was paying dear for the eccentricities
of genius. A genius she certainly was, for
besides her surprising agility, she had other talents
equally extraordinary. There was no fence
that she could not take down; nowhere that she
could not go. She took the pickets off the garden
fence at her pleasure, using her horns as handily
as I could use a claw hammer. Whatever she has
a mind to, whether it were a bite in the cabbage
garden, or a run in the corn patch, or a foraging
expedition into the flower borders, she made herself
equally welcome and at home. Such a scampering
and driving, such cries of “Suke here” and
“Suke there,” as constantly greeted our ears
kept our little establishment in a constant commotion.
At last, when she one morning made a
coat, and carried off one flap on her horns, my patience
gave out, and I determined to sell her.
As, however, I had made a good story of my
misfortunes among my friends and neighbours, and
amused them with sundry whimsical accounts of
my various adventures in the cow-catching line,
I found when I came to speak of selling, that
there was a general coolness on the subject, and
nobody seemed disposed to be the recipient of my
responsibilities. In short, I was glad, at last, to
get fifteen dollars for her, and comforted myself
with thinking that I had at least gained twenty-five
dollars' worth of experience in the transaction,
to say nothing of the fine exercise.
I comforted my soul, however, the day after, by
purchasing and bringing home to my wife a fine
swarm of bees.
“Your bee, now,” says I, “is a really classical
insect, and breathes of Virgil and the Augustan
age—and then, she is a domestic, tranquil, placid
creature! How beautiful the murmuring of a
hive near our honeysuckle of a calm summer
evening! Then they are tranquilly and peacefully
amassing for us their stores of sweetness,
beautiful image of disinterested benevolence!”
My wife declared that I was quite a poet, and
the bee-hive was duly installed near the flowerpots,
that the delicate creatures might have the
full benefit of the honeysuckle and mignonette.
My spirits began to rise. I bought three different
treatises on the rearing of bees, and also one
or two new patterns of hives, and proposed to rear
my bees on the most approved model. I charged
all the establishment to let me know when there
was any indication of an emigrating spirit, that I
might be ready to receive the new swarm into my
patent mansion.
Accordingly, one afternoon, when I was deep
in an article that I was preparing for the North
American Review, intelligence was brought me that
a swarm had risen. I was on the alert at once,
and discovered on going out that the provoking
creatures had chosen the top of a tree about thirty
feet high to settle on. Now, my books had carefully
instructed me just how to approach the
swarm and cover them with a new hive, but I had
never contemplated the possibility of the swarm
being, like Haman's gallows, forty cubits high.
which rose like a column, full twenty feet, without
branch or twig. “What is to be done?” said I,
appealing to two or three neighbours. At last, at
the recommendation of one of them, a ladder was
raised against the tree, and, equipped with a shirt
outside of my clothes, a green veil over my head,
and a pair of leather gloves in my hand, I went
up with a saw at my girdle to saw off the branch
on which they had settled, and lower it by a rope
to a neighbour, similarly equipped, who stood below
with the hive.
As a result of this manœuvre the fastidious little
insects were at length fairly installed at housekeeping
in my new patent hive, and, rejoicing in
my success, I again sat down to my article.
That evening my wife and I took tea in our honeysuckle
arbour, with our little ones and a friend
or two, to whom I showed my treasures, and expatiated
at large on the comforts and conveniences
of the new patent hive.
But alas for the hopes of man! The little ungrateful
wretches, what must they do but take advantage
of my oversleeping myself the next morning,
to clear out for new quarters without so much
eight o'clock I found the new patent hive as good
as ever; but the bees I have never seen from that
day to this!
“The rascally little conservatives!” said I; “I
believe that they have never had a new idea from
the days of Virgil down, and are entirely unprepared
to appreciate improvements.”
Meanwhile the seeds began to germinate in our
garden, when we found, to our chagrin, that, between
John Bull and Paddy, there had occurred
sundry confusions in the several departments.
Radishes had been planted broadcast, carrots and
beets arranged in hills, and here and there a
whole paper of seed appeared to have been planted
bodily. My good old uncle, who, somewhat to my
confusion, made me a call at this time, was greatly
distressed and scandalized by the appearance of
our garden. But, by a deal of fussing, transplanting,
and replanting, it was got into some shape and
order. My uncle was rather troublesome, as careful
old people are apt to be—annoying us by perpetual
inquiries of what we gave for this, and that,
and running up provoking calculations on the
final cost of matters, and we began to wish that
But when, on taking leave, he promised to send
us a fine young cow of his own raising, our hearts
rather smote us for our impatience.
“'Taint any of your new breeds, nephew,” said
the old man, “yet I can say that she's a gentle,
likely young crittur, and better worth forty dollars
than many a one that's cried up for Ayrshire or
Durham; and you shall be quite welcome to her.”
We thanked him, as in duty bound, and thought
that if he was full of old-fashioned notions, he was
no less full of kindness and good will.
And now, with a new cow, with our garden beginning
to thrive under the gentle showers of
May, with our flower-borders blooming, my wife
and I began to think ourselves in Paradise. But
alas! the same sun and rain that warmed our fruit
and flowers brought up from the earth, like sulky
gnomes, a vast array of purple-leaved weeds, that
almost in a night seemed to cover the whole surface
of the garden beds. Our gardeners both being
gone, the weeding was expected to be done by
me—one of the anticipated relaxations of my leisure
hours.
“Well,” said I, in reply to a gentle intimation
from my wife, “when my article is finished, I'll
take a day and weed all up clean.”
Thus days slipped by, till at length the article
was dispatched, and I proceeded to my garden.
Amazement! who could have possibly foreseen that
anything earthly could grow so fast in a few days!
There were no bounds, no alleys, no beds, no distinction
of beet and carrot, nothing but a flourishing
congregation of weeds nodding and bobbing
in the morning breeze, as if to say,—“We hope
you are well, sir—we've got the ground, you see!”
I began to explore, and to hoe, and to weed. Ah!
did anybody ever try to clean a neglected carrot
or beet bed, or bend his back in a hot sun over
rows of weedy onions! He is the man to feel for
my despair! How I weeded, and sweat, and
sighed! till, when high noon came on, as the result
of all my toils, only three beds were cleaned!
And how disconsolate looked the good seed, thus
unexpectedly delivered from its sheltering tares,
and laid open to a broiling July sun! Every juvenile
beet and carrot lay flat down, wilted and
drooping, as if, like me, they had been weeding
instead of being weeded.
“This weeding is quite a serious matter,” said
I to my wife; “the fact is, I must have help about
it!”
“Just what I was myself thinking,” said my
wife. “My flower-borders are all in confusion,
and my petunia mounds so completely overgrown,
that nobody would dream what they were meant
for!”
In short it was agreed between us that we
could not afford the expense of a full-grown man
to keep our place, yet we must reinforce ourselves
by the addition of a boy, and a brisk youngster
from the vicinity was pitched upon as the happy
addition. This youth was a fellow of decidedly
quick parts, and in one forenoon made such a
clearing in our garden that I was delighted—bed
after bed appeared to view, all cleared and
dressed out with such celerity that I was quite
ashamed of my own slowness, until, on examination,
I discovered that he had, with great impartiality,
pulled up both weeds and vegetables.
This hopeful beginning was followed up by a
succession of proceedings which should be recorded
for the instruction of all who seek for help from
the race of boys. Such a loser of all tools, great
gates, and a letter down of bars—such a personification
of all manner of anarchy and ill luck—
had never before been seen on the estate. His
time, while I was gone to the city, was agreeably
diversified with roosting on the fence, swinging on
the gates, making poplar whistles for the children,
hunting eggs, and eating whatever fruit happened
to be in season, in which latter accomplishment he
was certainly quite distinguished. After about
three weeks of this kind of joint gardening, we
concluded to dismiss master Tom from the firm,
and employ a man.
“Things must be taken care of,” said I, “and
I cannot do it. 'Tis out of the question.” And
so the man was secured.
But I am making a long story, and may chance
to outrun the sympathies of my readers. Time
would fail me to tell of the distresses manifold
that fell upon me—of cows dried up by poor
milkers, of hens that wouldn't set at all, and hens
that despite all law and reason wonld set on one
egg, of hens that having hatched families straightway
led them into all manner of high grass and
weeds, by which means numerous young chicks
when I, with manifold toil, had driven one of
these inconsiderate gadders into a coop, to teach
her domestic habits, the rats came down upon her,
and slew every chick in one night! how my pigs
were always practising gymnastic exercises over
the fence of the stye, and marauding in the garden.
(I wonder that Fourier never conceived the
idea of having his garden-land ploughed by pigs, for
certainly they manifest quite a decided elective
attraction for turning up the earth.)
When autumn came, I went soberly to market in
the neighbouring city, and bought my potatoes
and turnips like any other man, for, between all
the various systems of gardening pursued, I was
obliged to confess that my first horticultural
effort was a decided failure. But though all my
rural visions had proved illusive, there were some
very substantial realities. My bill at the seed
store, for seeds, roots, and tools, for example, had
run up to an amount that was perfectly unaccountable;
then there were various smaller items,
such as horse-shoeing, carriage-mending—for he
who lives in the country and does business in the
city must keep his vehicle and appurtenances. I
and settling every account, great and small, with
the going out of the old year, but this season I
found myself sorely put to it. In fact, had not I
received a timely lift from my good old uncle, I
had made a complete break-down. The old gentleman's
troublesome habit of ciphering and calculating,
it seems, had led him beforehand to
foresee that I was not exactly in the money-making
line, nor likely to possess much surplus revenue to
meet the note which I had given for my place,
and therefore he quietly paid it himself, as I discovered
when, after much anxiety and some sleepless
nights, I went to the holder to ask for an extension
of credit.
“He was right after all,” said I to my wife,
“`to live cheap in the country, a body must know
how.'”
| Uncle Sam's emancipation | |