DUKE UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 The Glenn Negley Collection 
 of Utopian Literature 
 
A LORD OF LANDS 
 
 BY 
 
 RAMSEY BENSON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1908 
 
Copyright, 1908, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. 
 
 Published August, 1908. 
 
uToP\d: 
 
 -1 \ ^ 
 
 b ^t . 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 We are just after having a bit of a difference, my 
 daughter EHzabeth and I, touching these prelimin- 
 ary remarks, what title is rightly to be given them. 
 Elizabeth, let it be known, is for calling them the 
 Foreword. 
 
 " All the books, nowadays," says she, " have fore- 
 words." 
 
 " Indeed ! " says I, with my feeling for the old 
 ways. "Is not preface good enough any more?" 
 
 " Preface," says Elizabeth, thinking, I daresay, 
 to touch a pet prejudice of mine, " is Latin." 
 
 " Very well ! " says I, a little dashed, I am bound 
 to confess, but more than ever determined not to 
 give up. " If preface is Latin, what, may I ask, is 
 foreword? " 
 
 " Foreword," says the girl, looking at me very 
 hard, with the air of having me caught in my own 
 trap, " is Anglo-Saxon." 
 
 "That settles it!" says I. "No Anglo-Saxon, 
 or any other sort of Saxon, for me, if you please. 
 I had ancestors in Enniskillen, I suppose, and I sup- 
 pose I had ancestors with King William at Boyne 
 Water. Anyway, I can well remember hearing my 
 father brag of it, and of being very proud of it. 
 
11 
 
 Preface. 
 
 myself, without well knowing why, nor am I by any 
 means ashamed of it, even now, having named a son 
 of mine Walker, but for all that we hear too much 
 about the Anglo-Saxon. I am no great friend of 
 the Latin, but there's reason in all things." 
 
 And so I am calling it the Preface. 
 
 It is chiefly, if I am rightly informed, in the 
 thought of making himself illustrious and distin- 
 guished among his fellows that a man writes a book, 
 (why a woman ever writes a book I shall not under- 
 take to say, for I am wholly at a loss on that head) 
 but at the same time he naturally wishes it to appear 
 that he has a better, or at all events, a less selfish 
 motive. Hence the preface, by means of which he 
 affects to discover some loftier principle, to exhibit 
 himself as one actuated solely by the love of truth, 
 or the likes of that. I am only human, and more- 
 over Irish, but I hope I am tolerably honest, withal, 
 and if I hunger for applause with an exceeding 
 great hunger, I shall not deny my nature, and yet, 
 after all is duly owned up to, I should hardly have 
 ventured into the field of literature but for the 
 promptings of the girl Elizabeth. She it was who 
 put me up to the enterprise. 
 
 Even with her the notion was some time coming 
 to its growth. Often and often had she heard me 
 tell the tale, a part now and another part again, as 
 had the other children likewise, and all such, indeed, 
 as I could get the ear of, for there is nothing I like 
 better than carrying on a conversation where I have 
 little or none of the listening to do, but it was not 
 until she was become a great girl and had been away 
 
Preface. iii 
 
 to school that there came to her the thought of my 
 writing it down. Anyway, it was not till then that 
 she spoke of the matter, and urged it upon me as a 
 solemn duty that I should give the narrative perma- 
 nent form, for the benefit of posterity. 
 
 "Me write?" says I, forgetting, in the surprise 
 of the moment, the niceties of correct usage, as I 
 fear I shall keep on doing all my life, in moments of 
 strong emotion, out of the force of long habit, and 
 in spite of knowing better. 
 
 I assure you I was mightily floored by the pro- 
 posal, coming upon me all at once. My old grand- 
 mother, rest her good soul (I trust I do not dis- 
 credit m;y religious training, which was of the 
 strictest, when I wish her well, though she be dead, 
 and therefore, according to the letter of Protestant 
 doctrine, beyond the reach of our prayers) — she, I 
 say, would hold up her hands at any of her race 
 even reading a book, let alone writing one. She 
 would have it that there was no such thing as read- 
 ing, by common folks, only a wicked pretense by 
 which a generation of vipers tried to make them- 
 selves out as good as their betters, meaning the 
 clergy and the gentility. I was never of that mind, 
 thanks to my great opportunities, but still I was 
 far from ready for Elizabeth's proposal. I was 
 for carrying the matter off with a joke, at first, but 
 I soon found the girl was very much in earnest. 
 
 " Certainly," says she. " Why not? I will cor- 
 rect your grammar and your spelling." 
 
 She could do it, too, could Elizabeth. Praise to 
 the face is open disgrace, perhaps, as they say, but 
 
IV Preface. 
 
 there is more to be thought of. The reader, whose 
 confidence we bespeak, has the right to know, I 
 think, that Elizabeth is graduated from the Normal 
 School, and, come fall, is to be a teacher. When 
 she spoke thus of correcting her old father's gram- 
 mar and spelling, do you imagine I was nettled? 
 On the contrary, it struck me as something to be 
 proud of, which I was, in proper moderation, the 
 more as everyone declares Elizabeth is her father's 
 girl, for all of her having her mother's hair and 
 eyes. I do not begrudge her mother the hair and 
 the eyes, in the least, for while mine answer well 
 enough for a man in my station, they are not such 
 as a young woman with prospects would wish to 
 have. 
 
 Of course my vanity was not long in seconding 
 the girl's motion, and with only my slender diffi- 
 dence working contrariwise, they presently pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 I am writing my preface last, as the custom is, I 
 believe, but inasmuch as you, my friend, w^ill likely 
 read it first, understand, at once, that what you have 
 before you is the story of how I, a bondman to be- 
 gin with or what came to about that, got to be a lord 
 of lands at last. Making a book of it has been no 
 easy task, for me, notwithstanding my great assur- 
 ance, which I have no wish to disavow, or belittle 
 in respect of the part it has borne in bringing me 
 through. Sometimes, in my weariness, even the 
 glory of literary fame would seem too small a 
 recompense for all the effort, and I would be for 
 giving up, only that there remained with me the hope 
 
Preface. V 
 
 of becoming, by it, the means of liberating other 
 bondmen. That was EUzabeth's generous concep- 
 tion from the first. 
 
 But though the girl and I are one as to the scope 
 and purpose of the work, we fall apart when we 
 come to the manner of its consummation. She has 
 her views and I have mine, and we are too much 
 alike for these to agree except broadly. She is of 
 the opinion that I have too much to say, in the 
 book, about how I got my farm, and not enough 
 about what I did with it thereafter. 
 
 " Any fool," says she, with a touch of scorn that 
 accuses her youth and inexperience, for I will not 
 admit there is anything wrong with her heart, 
 " can get a farm." 
 
 '' Pardon me," says I, for I have a firmness, even 
 where I know I am wrong, and where I know I am 
 right, I am adamant. " Any fool," says I, " except 
 the poor fool, the fool cast away in a great city, the 
 fool who has worked for wages till the habit is 
 grained into him and he has almost no initiative for 
 enterprise." 
 
 My message, if I have any, while I shall be very 
 glad if others read it and find a hint in it,— my mes- 
 sage, I say, is for the man who is what I was, the 
 man to whom it will but hardly occur that oppor- 
 tunity has anything for him, and I believe I know 
 what part of my story will interest him especially. 
 He would not thank me to omit to tell him how I 
 took heart of grace, how I plucked up courage and 
 went in pursuit of opportunity to see what she had 
 for me, and all that came of it,— he would not thank 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 me, I repeat, were I to leave these things out, in 
 order to mock him with a bookful of disquisitions 
 on the art of agricuhure. The press sweats tracts 
 and treatises on farming, many of them excellent, 
 all of them better, I daresay, than anything I could 
 write in that line, and they will show him the way, 
 once he has the will. But for the present they seem 
 to him to treat of a country far off and inaccessible, 
 for the lack of the kindred touch which it is my 
 dearest wish to supply with this recital of my hum- 
 ble experience. If I have made much of my trials 
 in the beginning, and what they sprung from, it is 
 in order that you, my friend, may recognize me as 
 one of your own kind, and not think of me as but 
 another preacher talking down at you from a 
 pulpit. 
 
 And when, having followed the course by which 
 I became a lord of lands, I enter somewhat into the 
 details of husbandry, it is not to set up fingerboards, 
 bidding you to go and do likewise. Still my mes- 
 sage is for my people, that vast majority of mankind 
 who have it not in them ever to be rich, who are 
 bound, as by an inexorable fate, to be forever poor, 
 and now the burden of it is that there's a better 
 place to be poor in than the city, a place where 
 poverty does not necessarily spell misery, and may 
 be made to spell something very like comfort. 
 
A LORD OF LANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 When Ludovika, my wife, presented me with a 
 fifth child and a fourth daughter, it set me to think- 
 ing very soberly, more soberly, in all probability, 
 than I had ever thought for any length of time in all 
 my life before, although I was always by my nature 
 inclined to be of a serious mind, as men go. My 
 wages were fifty dollars a month, and that circum- 
 stance was the pivot, so to speak, round which my 
 meditations revolved. With seven mouths to feed, 
 and seven backs to clothe, to say nothing of the needs 
 of the seven souls which are most important of all, 
 but are all too easy to neglect and forget, ow- 
 ing to their having no way of crying out, as do 
 bodily needs, — with all these, I say, fifty dollars 
 a month looked woefully small to me, that day, and 
 with every day following it dwindled more and 
 more, for now that I was thinking soberly, every 
 day I bethought me of some new demand likely to 
 fall upon my slender income. Seven dollars a month 
 for each of us, to strike the average, with a dollar 
 over for the general good, meant but one thing, and 
 
2 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 that thing was pinching, and no light pinching at 
 that. Already, with only six of us, we had been 
 cutting to the quick, and now the knife must go 
 in deeper, let the hurt be what it would. Further- 
 more, the end was not yet. For Ludovika was 
 barely turned thirty. 
 
 Not that I was sorry for what had come to pass. 
 On the contrary, I was glad when the child was 
 born, and for the moment forgot everything else in 
 the joy and pride of fatherhood, notwithstanding 
 that the sweet taste of these was by no means 
 new to me. I was ready to cry when they laid the 
 little new girl in my arms, I w^as that overcome with 
 the thought of the blessedness of it all, and I 
 kissed Ludovika with every feeling of gratitude. 
 It may be that I wished, for the briefest instant, 
 as was only natural, that it had been a man child, 
 what with our already having but one such as 
 against three of the other sex, but in another 
 instant I was quite content on that head. For 
 while it may be that girls are more expensive 
 by reason of their dress and all that, on the other 
 hand boys have their drawbacks, notably, their wild 
 and raucous ways as the man begins to stir in them, 
 whereby they keep their fathers awake nights, if no 
 worse. There comes into my mind an appropriate 
 sentiment often quoted to me in my young days, but 
 not oftener, I fear, than my conduct furnished the 
 ample text for it : 
 
 " "What are little boys made of ? 
 
 Shrimps and snails and puppy-dogs* tails, 
 That's what little boys are made of. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 3 
 
 " What are little girls made of ? 
 
 Sugar and spice and everything nice, 
 That's what little girls are made of." 
 
 In the time of it, this struck me as the very height of 
 folly, and even now I conceive that the poet has 
 aimed rather at breadth of suggestion than at strin- 
 gent accuracy, but withal there is much truth in it. 
 Girls are sure a great comfort, with their sweet- 
 ness and their gentleness, and their aptitude for gig- 
 gling at nothing. I often ask myself, what would 
 this gray old world be, had girls not been endowed 
 by a wise Providence with this happy faculty of 
 giggling gratuitously, with nothing whatsoever to 
 giggle over? 
 
 About this time, one of them a little before and 
 the other a little after, there came drifting my way, 
 on the turbid stream which flows higher and higher 
 from the unwearying press, two bits of print, the one 
 to raise up in me a great carking doubt, the other to 
 lay this, in some measure, with good hope; or, to 
 speak more justly, the one to arouse me to a sense of 
 my duty, and the other to show me how that duty 
 might be done. They were both messages of good 
 import, though the former of them seemed anything 
 but that in its day, a very trial sent to vex me. 
 
 It was an article of some length, of the kind I 
 seldom read in those days, having no such fondness 
 for solid matter as my good luck put me in the way 
 of acquiring later, and it had to do with a most un- 
 pleasant discovery. Some wise fellow, whose name 
 I altogether forget, ahhough I have it distinctly in 
 mind that he was a doctor of philosophy and there- 
 
4 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 fore not to be thrust aside lightly, with his theories, 
 had been looking into the matter with close attention 
 and had found that three persons out of every ten 
 residing in the city of London never knew what it 
 was, from one year's end to another, to have enough 
 to eat. Will you think of that ? The larger part of 
 these unfortunates had resources, greater or less, 
 but their income, as the w^ise fellow phrased it, had, 
 notwithstanding, fallen below the line of subsistence. 
 They managed, by hook or by crook, to get enough 
 food to keep body and soul together, and that was 
 all. They were saved from dying, barely, and never 
 in any true sense nourished. Their food was suffi- 
 cient to keep the vital, vegetable functions going, in 
 the most languid way, while the truly human func- 
 tions starved and became to all intents and purposes 
 extinct. And worst of all there were the children, 
 for these people bred like red ants, till their quarters 
 swarmed with young, born to a heritage of disease 
 and starvation, doomed to grow up stunted in body, 
 darkened in mind, their souls like the fire that has 
 sunk to the last smouldering spark for lack of fuel. 
 It was horrible, and horriblest of all was their 
 apathy, their sheer inability even to hope for better 
 things, their utter lack of resolution to struggle 
 against their fate. Their hunger, never appeased, 
 had at last gnawed the very heart out of them, and 
 the leaven which makes men rise was dead in them, 
 past any possibility of resurrection. To feed them, 
 now, however bountifully, would avail no more than 
 to fatten their bodies, and leave their souls un- 
 touched. There was no fiber left in them to build on. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 5 
 
 They were more hopelessly alienated from the birth- 
 right of mankind made in the image of God than 
 the veriest savages of the forest. 
 
 But it was when the wise fellow came to the why 
 and the wherefore, mincing matters not at all, that 
 he laid hold of me especially, and left me in a cold 
 sweat of terror. We will begin (quoth he) with a 
 sturdy, brave young fellow, with about all the good 
 qualities that mark the Englishman, able to earn 
 twenty shillings a week, a very large wage, in Lon- 
 don. He marries, in due time, as all young men are 
 by their nature bound to do, and in due time he 
 begets children, a brood of sons and daughters, to 
 replenish the earth. But all the while, mind you, his 
 wage is twenty shillings, or, anyway, no more. He 
 is fortunate above his fellows if he gets so much. It 
 is enough and to spare for himself alone. It is 
 enough and to spare for himself and his wife, but 
 the time comes, with his family growing, when there 
 is nothing to spare, and then at last the time when 
 the wage is not enough. The income has fallen be- 
 low the line of subsistence, and there is no help for 
 it. The man fights against the inevitable, in vain, 
 and he and his join the host of starvelings. Where 
 there is one man who can earn twenty shillings, in 
 London, there are hundreds who cannot, though 
 they work their fingers to the bone, and all the time 
 there is marrying and giving in marriage, and chil- 
 dren come to the poor as they come to no others. 
 
 I tell you it made my blood run cold, for I could 
 not help but see that here, in all essentials, was a 
 pretty accurate description of my own fix. True, I 
 
6 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 was earning more than twenty shillings a week. I 
 looked up the table of sterling money in the chil- 
 dren's arithmetic, and figured out, in a rough way, 
 that my wage came to about fifty shillings a week, 
 but what comfort was there in that ? All things con- 
 sidered, perhaps it had no greater power of purchase 
 than the twenty shillings, and whether or no, I had 
 none the less my line of subsistence, steadily rising, 
 as my family grew, while my income stood still, 
 waiting for it to come up. Putting the very best face 
 on the matter, and saying nothing of the by no 
 means remote chance of my income falling, these two 
 would come together some day, and when they 
 parted again, the income would be below the other 
 and not above it. We were already seven, and 
 Ludovika in her prime. If it was hard to stub along 
 with seven of us, what should it be with ten of us, 
 or twelve of us, or even more, for there was no 
 telling? 
 
 The line of subsistence got to haunt me. I 
 thought of little else by day, and by night it was 
 with me in my dreams. Once, I recall, it took the 
 form of a line of hemp, with an awful noose at the 
 end, and I woke with a cry of anguish and a feeling 
 in my neck. It was not to be borne, this prospect of 
 sinking into the condition of hopeless and perpetual 
 want, as into a quagmire. I tried to persuade my- 
 self that I was borrowing trouble, but it was not to 
 be done. I looked for some escape in the fact that 
 I was not a resident of hideous old London, but of a 
 dean, new American city, and found none. I had 
 no wish to beguile myself, nor could I, if I would. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 7 
 
 what with my thorough awakening. There was no 
 denying that I was a wage-worker, dependent for 
 my opportunity to earn a living on conditions which 
 I could not in the least control, with an income 
 which nothing short of a miracle could ever increase, 
 and which a thousand and one things not miraculous 
 or even unusual might lessen, and there was no deny- 
 ing that I was one out of a great multitude like me. 
 If the clean new city held no submerged tenth, or 
 three-tenths, that was simply because we poor men 
 had not as yet had time to beget more children than 
 we could feed. Soon enough there would be a sub- 
 merged portion, and I and mine would be of it, un- 
 less we got out of the current that was drawing us 
 down. 
 
 Of course, I were not a man, if I did not rise in 
 some degree to my responsibilities, now for the first 
 time felt in all their weight. Not that I had hitherto 
 been altogether content with our position, or blind 
 to its dangers, for such was not the fact. I had 
 thought of our insecurity, off and on, not a little 
 but never with my present sense of urgency. Now, 
 at last, I saw clearly whither we were drifting, and 
 with a feeling that we should be lucky if among us 
 we could muster strength enough to stem the fatal 
 current, I began casting about for expedients, not as 
 desperately as a drowning man casts about for 
 straws, perhaps, but something like it. 
 
 Ludovika always made a quick recovery, and 
 never quicker than now. She was a perfectly healthy 
 woman, and, moreover, by way of the mental stimu- 
 lation which assists so powerfully in the mending of 
 
8 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 bodily ills, there was with her the thought of the 
 girls wasting the flour in their cookery. My wife 
 is thoroughly German, for which I have often and 
 often thanked the kind fate which sent her my way, 
 and in no respect more admirably so than in her fru- 
 gality. It was a solace, in my anxiety, to have it to 
 consider that nobody in all the world could make 
 fifty dollars go farther than this woman who had 
 the keeping of my house. In two weeks after the 
 coming of the child she was up and about, doing 
 some of the light things herself, and looking sharply 
 after the rest. In three weeks, she was about as 
 well as ever, for aught I could see, well enough, I 
 decided, to hear what I had to say. For I had been 
 meditating to some purpose, alarm having greatly 
 stimulated my poor wits, and my plans had taken 
 on such definite form that I did not feel right in 
 going farther without the consent of those whom 
 they concerned, and, first of all, my wife. 
 
 In a certain sense, I was at needless pains, in this. 
 Ludovika would do whatever I chose to command 
 her to do, barring a plain wrong or an impiety. If 
 she uttered as much as word of protest, it would be 
 only to yield the sooner in the end. That is the Ger- 
 man way. A German woman looks upon it as a 
 sacred duty to obey her husband, and had I simply 
 bidden my wife to follow me, follow she would, and 
 to whatsoever lot I should take her, she would pa- 
 tiently endure and make the best of it, like the brave, 
 cheerful soul she always was. Possibly a German 
 man is capable of taking advantage of such 
 fidelity, but I was not. I could not believe any great 
 
A Lord of Lands. 9 
 
 good was to come of an enterprise entered on in 
 that fashion. There are times of doubt and differ- 
 ence when it behooves the man of the house to 
 overrule the woman, but it strikes me as a chilHng 
 circumstance when a wife's heart is not in her hus- 
 band's work, save only as a sense of duty is able to 
 master her heart. No, indeed, not a step would I 
 take, happen what might, until I had Ludovika's free 
 consent. 
 
 It was upon a Sunday afternoon, with all the 
 children who were old enough to understand out of 
 the house, and the coast clear for a serious talk, that 
 I broached the subject nearest my heart. 
 
 " Ludovika," said I, *' something has got to be 
 done." 
 
 She was nursing the infant at the moment, and 
 looking as only a new mother can look, so sweet and 
 so happy. I had begun vaguely enough, as I fan- 
 cied, with a view to coming up rather gradually to 
 the difficulties which I well knew awaited me, but she 
 instantly divined my mind. When I spoke she 
 raised her eyes, with the sweetness and the happiness 
 all fled from them, and her look smote me. 
 
 ** I know what you're coming at, Matthew Fitz- 
 gerald," she said. " You're going to say we should 
 leave the town and go and live on a farm some- 
 where. I shall die if you take me to live on a farm. 
 I would rather be dead than live on a farm." 
 
 I might have been thunderstruck by this, and put 
 completely out of my resolution, only that I was 
 looking for it, or something like it, though not so 
 soon. Of the difficulties lying in the way of my 
 
lo A Lord of Lands. 
 
 project, all too plainly foreseen, this of my wife's 
 unwillingness was by no means the least. She was 
 perfectly right in her conjecture, for what I had 
 in purpose was indeed nothing less than that we 
 quit the city and become farmers. And it was no 
 new subject between us. At various times, in a 
 more or less casual way, I had ventured to suggest 
 that we would be better off living on a farm, and 
 invariably to call forth, by way of reply, some such 
 sentiment of opposition, although less vehemently 
 put. I was not surprised, therefore, except by the 
 suddenness of it, and the note of desperation, per- 
 haps, which I could ascribe in part to the effect of 
 the great nervous shock she had lately sustained. 
 Of course I did not at all believe that any sensible 
 woman in whom the love of life was strong, would 
 rather be dead than live on a farm, or anywhere else, 
 for that matter. That was only Ludovika's way of 
 expressing her strong disapproval. Never, hitherto, 
 had I pressed her much with argument, for until 
 now the matter had not seemed to me of such vital 
 moment. But to-day I was mightily in earnest, and 
 resolved to have it out. 
 
 " We are seven," said I. " Fifty dollars a month 
 has not proved any too much for six. There may 
 be even more than seven of us, yet." 
 
 " Please God ! " said Ludovika, devoutly. 
 
 " What shall we do, when we are more ? " said 
 I, and with this I saw her eyes opening very wide, 
 as they always did when she was disturbed. 
 
 " We will take a cheaper house," she said, after a 
 little, and rather faintly. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 1 1 
 
 " The house we Hve in has only three rooms," 
 said I. "' The children are getting too large to 
 sleep all in one room, and if we were to have but 
 two rooms, in all, how should we manage? '* 
 
 " Richard is indeed twelve," said Ludovika, 
 evasively, with a ring of motherly pride. 
 
 Richard is our oldest. Ludovika speaks his name 
 in the German fashion, with the hard sound, as if 
 it were Rickard, and with the stress at the end 
 of the word instead of the beginning. I call him 
 Richy, which is the Irish way, and good enough for 
 me. 
 
 " Yes," said I, proud myself, but not to be 
 beguiled into changing the subject. '' Richy is 
 twelve, and the town is no place for a boy of twelve." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Ludovika, pretty tartly, for her. 
 " And why not, pray? " 
 
 " Well, the temptations," said I, in some uncer- 
 tainty, for I had spoken without rightly considering 
 how I might justify myself, if called on. " The 
 countless temptations, and pitfalls laid for his feet." 
 
 " The temptations," said Ludovika, stoutly, " are 
 what will make a man of him." 
 
 " If they don't make a devil of him," said I, 
 for I had to hold up my end of the argument, 
 although in my heart I was about convinced that 
 the woman had the right of it. Sure the boy would 
 never be a man without some trial of his manhood. 
 I thought it prudent, on the whole, to shift my 
 ground a bit. 
 
 *' Anyway," said I, " the city is no place for the 
 girls." 
 
12 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 Ludovika flared up, fairly, at this. 
 
 " Never you fear for the girls," she said. " The 
 girls will be good girls anywhere you put them. 
 What for a father are you to be doubting your chil- 
 dren without cause?" 
 
 Very clearly, I was not going to make out much 
 persuading my wife unless I should find some more 
 practicable way of approach, and I dropped the 
 children. 
 
 " Ludovika, woman," I said, summoning my 
 solemnest manner, " this is not a matter of senti- 
 ment, but of bread and butter, by which I mean the 
 commonest necessities of life, leaving out all the 
 frills and furbelows. Fm not earning enough to 
 feed the family we already have, as they should be 
 fed, let alone the family we are like enough to have 
 before we are done." 
 
 " You will be foreman, some day," she said, 
 promptly, and with an air of conviction which gave 
 me a thrill of pride, while it hurt me, too, for as a 
 man rejoices to have his wife look up to him, and 
 expect great things of him, so it is most unpleasant 
 for him to think of having to dash her high expecta- 
 tions and chill her respect. 
 
 I was a switchman, by trade, and what Ludovika 
 meant was that I should some day become the boss 
 of a crew, and earn seventy or eighty dollars a 
 month. She was fond of predicting that I should be 
 foreman, all in good time, and I was fond of having 
 her, and had always let her go on without hindrance. 
 If in that I had deceived her, I had likewise deceived 
 myself. I had never doubted, until now, that my 
 
A Lord of Lands. 13 
 
 being a foreman some day lay well within the possi- 
 bilities, to say the least, but in the three weeks of m}^ 
 hard, sober thinking, I had, as I say, got new light. 
 I had thoroughly undeceived myself, and now I 
 should undeceive Ludovika. 
 
 " Listen to me," I said, with an effort to be calm, 
 for no man finds it easy to disparage himself, how- 
 ever he may pretend to the contrary. " I shall never 
 be foreman, though I live to be a thousand years old. 
 Only one man in fifty ever gets to be foreman, in 
 my business, and I am in all things one of the forty- 
 nine." 
 
 It was verily a blow to her. She stared at me 
 with her widest eyes, to see if I was in earnest, and 
 when my look left her no room to doubt that I 
 was, she breathed hard for a little, and the tears 
 came, and she broke forth into such a sputtering of 
 tempery things as quite amazed me, although I 
 was well aware she meant none of them, in her 
 heart. It was her chagrin, of course, and the 
 ordeal she had just gone through, and I could 
 not blame her. But I conceived that I had gone 
 far enough with the business, for the first sitting. 
 There was danger of pushing her, in such a degree 
 of warmth, to take a position which, however 
 she might regret it in a cooler moment, the common 
 pride of the fiesh would never let her back down 
 from. So I said no more, then, but bided my time. 
 
 We had no chance to talk week days, more than 
 to chat a little, about the commonplaces of life, for 
 I was away at my work from morning until night, 
 and came home that tired there was no lying awake 
 
14 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 for anything, and it was Sunday again before we 
 came back to the matter. In the meantime, 
 Ludovika was thinking, for herself, as anybody could 
 see. My telling her, in such a way that she could 
 not doubt it, that I was never to be foreman, never 
 anything more than a common switchman, this had 
 cut a good bit of ground out from under her feet, and 
 now she was casting about for a new place to stand. 
 There was really no call for me to put in a word. 
 Even if the opportunity had offered, I should not 
 have spoken to her of my plan before a week had 
 passed, for I should simply have distressed her to 
 no purpose, and at the risk of renewing her resent- 
 ment, if such it could be called. I knew the perfect 
 honesty of her heart, and how that she would choose 
 to look the situation fairly in the face, even though 
 she should not come, without leading, to my way of 
 thinking. 
 
 When it was Sunday afternoon once more, and 
 the older children out of the way, for it was not yet 
 time to take them into the matter, and the woman 
 sitting with the infant at her breast, I saw that she 
 expected me to speak. 
 
 '' Ludovika," said I, " tell me, if you please, what 
 you have against living in the country? " 
 
 Of course I knew what she had against it, but I 
 had a purpose in drawing her out. I wished to 
 observe to what extent, if any, her recent considera- 
 tion had affected her point of view. 
 
 " It's the loneliness, Matthew," she said, with 
 a deep sigh. '* Here in the town there are many 
 things I would have otherwise, God willing, but 
 
A Lord of Lands. 15 
 
 there is always the relief of something going on, 
 and somebody to be with. Here, at least, we have 
 the comfort of human company. It is an awful 
 thing for beings to have to live apart from their 
 kind. You may say that the blessings of the city are 
 none of them for us who are so poor, but still there 
 is something which even we may enjoy. It is the 
 variety, I think, and the company. I do not know^ 
 how to speak what I mean, but there is something 
 here to make life worth living. It is true I have no 
 money to spend, but at any time I can go out and 
 meet with many people, and if I cannot buy the 
 goods in the stores, I can go in and see them. There 
 is always something to look forward to. God made 
 me a woman, Matthew. I cannot make myself 
 over." 
 
 Then the tears came afresh, and they were not all 
 Ludovika's tears, by any means. Do you know, 
 every word of that wandering, rambling speech of 
 hers seemed to find a chord in my own heart? It 
 may not strike you as much of an argument, but it 
 was near to carrying me. Only that I was deter- 
 mined not to waver, and had steeled myself, I had 
 been staggered. 
 
 " Beggars can't be choosers," I said, conquering 
 my emotion, after a little. 
 
 " We are not beggars," said she, simply. " We 
 shall never beg, even though we starve." 
 
 Whether it w^as her resolute, confident way or 
 what not, I could feel that with every reply she was 
 gaining a species of ascendancy over me, as if, 
 with all my advantage as regards logic, she was 
 
1 6 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 morally, so to speak, too much for me. If I shook 
 it off, and rose to the occasion, I assure you it 
 was no easy thing to do. 
 
 " We are poor," I said, " and in that sense beg- 
 gars. And what does it signify to be poor? It 
 signifies that we have got to give up something, 
 nay, much, whatsoever way we turn. Poverty 
 means sacrifice, and yet again sacrifice. For such 
 as we, there is vouchsafed only a choice of evils. 
 To go and live in the country would put a great 
 sacrifice upon us, as we both know, you no better 
 than I, but what about the sacrifice it puts upon us 
 to stay in the city? We should choose the lesser 
 evil, I think, in so far as we are able to measure the 
 one against the other. Here in town we shall have 
 plenty of company, but too little food. In the 
 country we should lack company, perhaps, but we 
 should have enough to eat. Will all the company in 
 the world supply a deficiency of bodily nourishment? 
 Are company, and variety, comforts though they 
 undoubtedly are, worth starving for? ** 
 " Man does not live by bread alone." 
 " But he cannot live without bread." 
 " We never have lacked bread, Matthew. The 
 Lord will provide. He sees the sparrow fall, and 
 He will not forget us. It is wicked in us to have 
 doubts of His providence." 
 
 " Very well, then. How does the Lord provide 
 for the millions in London who never know what it 
 is to have enough to eat? The Lord's ways are a 
 great mystery, as all admit, even those who claim to 
 know the most about them. Perhaps He has some- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 17 
 
 thing waiting in the hereafter for these wretched 
 people, which will repay them for all their sufferings 
 in the present life, but just the same I cannot believe 
 the Lord ever intended me to starve if I can help 
 it. He intended me to feed myself and the family 
 He has given to my care. I take it to be His will 
 that we look ahead, and save ourselves from 
 want by our own providence, while yet we have 
 the spirit for it, not waiting till want shall have 
 crushed the heart out of us and left us hopeless and 
 helpless." 
 
 I will confess that this sounded more like a 
 sermon than what I had meant to say, besides being 
 none too clear, but it proved fit to the purpose I 
 had in view. Ludovika wiis visibly afifected by it, 
 as she was ever apt to be by any discourse of a 
 pious tenor, having the temper, and the fact of her 
 seldom hearing anything of the kind out of me was 
 not likely to render it any the less impressive. She 
 looked up at me, for I had risen to my feet in my 
 earnestness, in a bewildered, yielding way, with the 
 air of reaching out, as it were, for a guiding hand. 
 
 '' I'm a wom.an, Matthew," was all she could make 
 out to say, and I saw the moment had come for 
 me to lead out my high cards. 
 
 " Think," said I, " of having fresh eggs and fresh 
 butter, and buckwheat with no sawdust in it, and 
 strawberries ripened on their vines and not in an 
 ice-house, and real cream, and a fat goose just as 
 often as you wish for it." 
 
 I cannot admit for a moment that this was a base 
 or unworthy argument. A liking for good things 
 2 
 
1 8 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 to eat is no reproach to anybody, least of all to the 
 mother of a family. I have read somewhere, or 
 been told by somebody, that the Emperor of Germany 
 chose his wife because of her wholesome appetite, 
 which she had the good sense not to try to conceal 
 even though she knew herself to be under inspection, 
 and if he did so, he was kind to his children. I 
 know not how much our babies owe to Ludovika 
 never having missed a meal, not even breakfast, but 
 I am convinced that it is a very great deal. A 
 heritage of heartiness is more to be desired than a 
 heritage of lands and cattle, though the two together 
 are no doubt better than either alone, and heartiness 
 seems to be one of the things which children get 
 from their mother, or not at all. It was to no 
 unworthy motive, then, that I made appeal, with the 
 opportune mention of these comestibles, and it was 
 with no misgivings, or the least feeling of having 
 taken a guilty advantage of her, that I beheld 
 Ludovika's reluctance melting fast before the 
 thought of such felicities. 
 
 " Goose is the best of all," she faltered, in a weak 
 way, and with a certain movement of the muscles of 
 the throat which have to do with swallowing, show- 
 ing her to be most powerfully affected. 
 
 Hereupon, all things seeming to favor, I played 
 my trump. 
 
 " Ludovika, woman," I said, " listen to me. If 
 you were to have fifteen families with you in the 
 country, the fifteen you like best, living as near you 
 as they live here, and nearer, for that matter, would 
 not this serve to take off the curse of loneliness, in a 
 
A Lord of Lands. 19 
 
 great measure? Would it not afford you enough 
 human company to make Hfe tolerable?" 
 
 She opened her great blue eyes the widest I ever 
 saw them, I think, unless it should be when, long 
 years ago, I asked her would she have me (she 
 was always that simple and unsuspecting, and down- 
 right surprised by things which any other woman 
 would know could not help but happen), anyway, 
 most wonderful wide, until it seemed to me I could 
 look her through and through and read every 
 thought in her dear, faithful heart. Had she been an 
 Irish woman, such as I had always the wish to marry 
 until I met with her, having a partiality for their 
 liveliness and smart ways, she would have laughed 
 in my face, now, and more likely than not moved me 
 to temper, and brought on a spat. But Ludovika 
 never laughed at me, to make fun of me, never in the 
 world. I could see there was a very great perplexity 
 in her mind, but back of this a confidence in me, such 
 as made me feel as proud as a king, and most anxious 
 to deserve it. 
 
 But she could not speak, only stare at me, with 
 her wide eyes. 
 
 "Think about it, Ludovika, woman," I said. 
 " Take plenty of time. Pick out the fifteen families 
 which you would like best to have for your near 
 neighbors, and when you've got your list all made 
 up, just as you wish it, we'll have another talk 
 over it." 
 
 Just a little she wavered, now. 
 
 "You're not joking, Matthew?" she said, quite 
 
20 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 hesitating and timid like, for fear of seeming 
 disloyal and undutiful. 
 
 '* Never in all my life was I more serious," I 
 said. " It's a matter, if not of life and death, at any 
 rate of happiness and unhappiness, which are perhaps 
 as important. It is something to go about cheer- 
 fully, but nothing to joke about." 
 
 She took me at my word, and the strangeness of 
 it all gave rise to no more doubts, with her. In the 
 days which followed, her thoughts were busy with 
 her list, choosing as I had bidden her choose, in the 
 best of good faith. She was ever a silent person, as 
 compared w^ith myself, anyway, but it was all but 
 impossible for her to conceal a thought, with her 
 great eyes speaking out so plainly to such as in the 
 least understood her. In these days she had even 
 less to say than usual, and nothing but the com- 
 monplaces of everyday, but I knew what was going 
 on in her mind about as well as if she had chattered 
 incessantly. Sometimes it seemed to me that I 
 could almost catch the names of the people she was 
 considering, merely by watching her face. 
 
 I was very careful, on my part, to say nothing 
 which should seem to suggest a choice, or lay any 
 constraint upon her, but I managed at least as often 
 as every day to put in a word or so which should 
 discover my very deep interest in what she was do- 
 ing, for this, I surmised, would have the effect of 
 sustaining her, and keeping her at the business, 
 which might otherwise get to appear bootless, since 
 she knew not the whole purpose and meaning of it, 
 as yet. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 2i 
 
 It is true that Germans think rather slowly, but 
 they think to some purpose, and when they are done, 
 they have solid ground to stand on. An Irish 
 woman would have made up her mind in half the 
 time, or less, and known her mind something like 
 half as well, at last. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 When the passing of a week had brought another 
 Sabbath of rest, Ludovika laid before me a remnant 
 of the grocer's wrapping paper written over with 
 names, in her neat, plain hand, for I will say that 
 her writing, though done with no great speed, is like 
 print to read. Nor is it devoid of ornament, 
 especially as regards the capitals. Germans use 
 capitals very freely, and from this they naturally 
 derive a facility and a style in making them. Writ- 
 ing is hard work, for me, and the results far from 
 rising to a just proportion with the effort. There 
 are some things which, if a man has neglected to 
 learn them when he was of the age for learning, he 
 may pick up afterwards, by setting himself resolutely 
 about it, but writing, I fear, is not one of them. 
 Had I rightly apprehended the mere manual labor 
 involved in writing a book, I should have been 
 appalled by it, and so toilsome has the business 
 proved, though I am no farther on than the second 
 chapter, that I am sure I shall be content with hav- 
 ing written one book, without ever undertaking 
 another. 
 
 But to come back to Ludovika, it was not the list 
 which she was submitting, but rather the material 
 for a Hst, the list in the raw, so to speak. She had 
 
A Lord of Lands. 23 
 
 come to a point of perplexity where she had to be 
 assisted to a choice, being unable to choose for her- 
 self. And first of all, there was her sister Trudchen, 
 as to whom she found herself wholly at a loss. 
 Should Trudchen be one of the fifteen, or should she 
 not? Trudchen was Ludovika's only blood relative 
 in this country, aside from her own children, of 
 course, but for all that, they were not distinguished 
 friends. Only that they were born of the same 
 parents and actuated, as Germans especially are, by 
 a sense of family ties, and the duty these imply, they 
 would never have been friends at all. There was 
 not the faintest spark of natural sympathy between 
 them. They were just enough alike, by reason of 
 their consanguinity, to fall short of the contrast 
 which lies at the bottom of the most intimate human 
 relations, and at the same time, touching those 
 qualities wherein a similarity makes for affinity, they 
 were as different as possible. What their inner 
 natures had left undone by way of setting them apart 
 from each other, circumstances seemed to have 
 conspired to finish, and not least the circumstance of 
 Trudchen being childless. While it perhaps spoils 
 a woman's looks to have babies, it spoils her disposi- 
 tion not to have them, if I understand the case at all. 
 Trudchen's disposition was rather more acid than 
 sugar, to begin with, and when we were so bounti- 
 fully blessed with offspring, she was embittered by 
 it, and given an especial spite against us. All the 
 time she professed to feel a pity for Ludovika being 
 made such a slave by her great family, but she was 
 too plainly disgruntled to deceive anybody. She 
 
24 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 took a real comfort in our tribulations, and in 
 triumphing over us, and the only joy she had in 
 visiting us lay in sharply spying out the proofs of 
 our poverty, and in saying the unkindest things 
 under the guise of courteous commiseration. 
 
 In yet another way Trudchen's childless condition 
 affected her eligibility, if that is the proper term. 
 For it made her situation wholly different from ours, 
 in the financial sense. She was married to a com- 
 mon laborer, it is true, and he never earned much 
 more than a dollar a day, on the whole, what with 
 being out of employment some of the time, but 
 withal their income was well above their line of 
 subsistence, and safe against falling below, since 
 they were but two, and both sparing. Indeed, they 
 were relatively well off, in a material way, and by 
 that had none of our reason for seeking a new order 
 of life, nor had they to endure any privations the 
 memory of which should nerve them to face a great 
 and hazardous change. 
 
 I knew perfectly well how the case stood with 
 Ludovika. She wished me to say what she had not 
 the heart to say herself. She was embarrassed be- 
 tween her strong preference and her strong sense 
 of duty, pulling in opposite directions, and she looked 
 to me to give her preference such a color of necessity 
 as should relieve her of the unpleasant responsibility 
 laid upon her by the ties of blood and her deep re- 
 spect for them. Accordingly, when she asked me, 
 first of all, if Trudchen was to go on the list, I 
 answered her, firmly, and as if my heart were 
 unalterably set upon it, that she was not, under any 
 
A Lord of Lands. 25 
 
 consideration. It may seem to you that I was too 
 masterful, here, but I am sure I was not more so than 
 my wife expected me to be, and was grateful and 
 relieved to have me be. I simply voiced her mind, 
 which she was too considerate of her sister to be 
 able to voice herself. I suspect that it is not so 
 much in being masterful that men offend their 
 wives, as in being masterful at the wrong time. 
 Your womanly woman is lacking in decision, and 
 she is disappointed in her man if he does not make 
 good her deficiency, as the occasion arises. 
 
 It was likewise with the others whom she had 
 doubts about. I decided the choice, but always and 
 only as I knew Ludovika would have me decide, she 
 herself being involved in such a tanglement of con- 
 flicting considerations as left her powerless to choose. 
 When the list was made up, at length, it was by no 
 means such a list as I would have chosen, although, 
 as I say, the final choice had devolved upon me. It 
 was Ludovika's list, as I wished it to be, with the 
 purposes I had in view. These people were to be 
 our near neighbors, if all went well, mine equally as 
 much as hers, but always with this to be kept in 
 mind, that neighbors are more to a woman than they 
 are to a man. This comes partly from the difference 
 of their natures, and partly from the division of 
 their duties, by which a man has the wider horizon 
 and goes farther from home in his associations. 
 
 However, take it all in all, I was suf^ciently con- 
 tent with the people. At all events, they met the 
 rnost important condition, in that they and we were 
 in the same boat, as the phrase is. In order to give 
 
2 6 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 us something of a community of purpose, there 
 need be a common fate among us, and such there 
 was. It needed that all of us be poor, though as 
 yet untouched by that direst poverty which saps all 
 resolution ; with the very certain prospect of a fixed 
 income, or fixed at least in the sense that it would 
 never be any greater, and with a constantly growing 
 expense by reason of new mouths to feed, in the 
 natural and proper order ; and such we were. These 
 were the sort Ludovika had selected, not with 
 any reference to the ends I had in mind, for of 
 these she knew little or nothing, but quite in a 
 natural way, since it was among such that she found 
 her intimates and cronies. Birds of a feather flock 
 together, and in a city, if not elsewhere, it is worldly 
 condition more than anything else which determines 
 the circles of friendship. If the prince and the 
 peasant are ever chums, certainly it is not in town. 
 Though poverty was our common lot, it is not 
 true that all these sixteen families, for with ourselves 
 the list held sixteen, were in anything like identical 
 circumstances. There was some variety of fortune 
 among us, after all. No other family, for instance, 
 was as badly off as the Rosses. Ross was a very 
 young man, not long past his majority, in fact, who 
 was learning the printer's trade. The printers are a 
 jealous craft, as the prosperous and highly paid 
 crafts are only too apt to be, and they compel, or did 
 at that time compel, their apprentices to serve seven 
 years before coming into the estate of a journeyman. 
 During that long period of preparation, an ap- 
 prentice, by the rigid law of the union, could have no 
 
A Lord of Lands. 27 
 
 more than seven dollars a week, for his pay, and that 
 was what Ross had, a sufficient wage to keep a mod- 
 est boy nicely, but the merest beggarly pittance for 
 a man with a family. When Ross had worked out 
 only a little more than a year of his time, and had 
 still almost six years of the servitude ahead of him, 
 he fell desperately in love with a pretty little milliner, 
 and she with him, and love laughed in the same old 
 way at all the obstacles, and they were married. To 
 the blind eyes of love, in fact, there appeared no 
 obstacles. The girl was earning seven dollars a 
 week, too, and seven and seven made fourteen, in 
 the arithmetic which governs in computations of 
 that character, and fourteen dollars a week was a 
 great plenty, and was it not notorious that two could 
 live cheaper than one? Like the foolish creatures 
 they were, and we all have been in our time, no 
 doubt, they foresaw nothing, but reckoned con- 
 fidently on both of them keeping right at work, the 
 new relation notwithstanding. Well, to make the 
 story short, and skim over the details, the unex- 
 pected happened, as it always does when it is like- 
 wise the undesired, and one bright, eventful day, 
 there came two more Rosses into the family, and 
 the little milliner's wages stopped there and then, 
 forever, for now she had something else to do than 
 trim hats for other folks. The printers in the shop 
 made a great joke of it, serenaded the Rosses with 
 a brass band, and ended up with giving them the 
 most sumptuous great double perambulator they 
 could find in all the town. That is as much sense as 
 some good-hearted, well-meaning people have. 
 
2 8 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 What was a silk-lined, silver-mounted perambulator 
 to a father and mother who had to look forward to 
 supporting a family of four on seven dollars a week, 
 during upwards of five years, and only the good 
 Lord Himself knowing how many more might come 
 in the meanwhile? 
 
 Nor were all of us as badly off as the Browns> 
 although the Browns were better off than the Rosses. 
 It was not that they had such a vastly greater in- 
 come, for Brown was a barber working for a share 
 of what he took in, and there were lean weeks when 
 his pay fell almost to seven dollars, but rather that 
 they were different people altogether. The women, 
 especially, were different, and where poverty has 
 knocked at the door, the issue depends fully as much 
 on the wage-spender as on the wage-earner. Mrs. 
 Brown was a very thrifty person, active, ambitious, 
 and if not robust, at least wiry and nervous, and 
 whatsoever there was in a dollar she would get 
 it out, whereas Mrs. Ross was dainty, and shy to the 
 verge of timidity, not at all fit to be haggling with 
 tradesmen, or mingling in the tumult of the bargain- 
 counter. Only for his capable wife, Brown's case 
 would have been quite the worst of all, for he was 
 himself a man of no force of character, which I 
 attributed to his having waited so long on the whims 
 of others. There is indeed something very degrad- 
 ing about the position which puts you in mortal 
 dread of giving the least offense, and in nothing 
 are men harder to please than in their shaving. But 
 I had more to learn, about Brown, as will duly 
 appear. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 29 
 
 Three men on the Hst were teamsters, and three 
 were carpenters, and these were given an especial 
 value in virtue of their calling, but none of the others 
 had a trade such as might be turned to any account 
 in the new order of life. To take myself, for an in- 
 stance, once I should have taken the step I had in 
 view, I should never throw another switch or couple 
 another car, and by that my craft, laboriously 
 learned, was to be in a sense lost to me. But at the 
 same time, there was the habit of industry, and the 
 two strong hands, and certain qualities of alertness 
 and confidence in emergency, and these I thought to 
 have use of still, and it was a good deal likewise 
 with the rest, who were solicitors and salesmen and 
 collectors and factory hands. They all of them ap- 
 peared, as I considered them one after another, to 
 have some measure of equipment and preparation 
 for the business in hand, if it was nothing more than 
 their poverty which made them restive and desirous 
 of a change. Ludovika had made her selections, no 
 doubt, more wnth an eye to their social qualities, and 
 particularly the social qualities of the women, and 
 while the men were not, as I say, just the men I 
 would have chosen, they seemed on the whole a 
 likely lot of fellows. And still they were not such 
 a lot that it would be hard to duplicate them, a 
 hundred and perhaps a thousand times over, in any 
 largish city. They were after all about the run of 
 poor men as you will find them, by which I mean the 
 working poor, who are yet able to hold their heads 
 above water, though it be not far above, and who 
 have not quite lost the wish to be somebody. 
 
36 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 The sixteen families which Ludovika finally set- 
 tled on, with my assistance, rendered as I have 
 described, comprised eighty-three souls, all told, 
 enough, I bethought me with a sense of gratulation, 
 to populate a very tolerable little hamlet. Thirty- 
 two of these were men and women in the prime of 
 life, none of them above thirty-five years of age, and 
 most of them under thirty. The rest were children, 
 half-grown and smaller, with one exception, the 
 ancient mother of Mrs. Krecke, her own name being 
 Hoff. We hesitated over counting in the Kreckes, 
 though much liking them, for the reason that they 
 were encumbered with the old woman. It was a 
 wicked thought, and we had in time reason enough 
 to be glad we dismissed it, for Mrs. Hoff proved a 
 valuable member, a brave soul always, and a great 
 reliance in an especial emergency, to some account of 
 which I hope to come, in its place. 
 
 These people w^ere out of many nations, as might 
 be expected, considering how mixed is our popula- 
 tion generally, and particularly the population of our 
 cities, but they were for the most part native born, 
 or, if not that, immigrants at such an early age that 
 they knew no other country but this, save by a feeble 
 tradition growing all the time feebler. Ludovika 
 did not forget her own race, as indeed she ought not, 
 on any consideration, for there is no denying that 
 the Germans are a good sort. I love to have them 
 about me, in moderation, and to hear their talk, 
 which, although I can make but little definite mean- 
 ing out of it, in spite of being married to one to the 
 manner born, has nevertheless in my ears a com- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 
 
 31 
 
 fortable and a cheerful sound, beyond that of any 
 other race with which I have ever come in contact. 
 I have never ceased to urge upon Ludovika the 
 wisdom of teaching the children to speak German, 
 and she has by no means neglected the matter, but 
 do you imagine the Httle scoundrels will have it? 
 Not they. Not a word can any of them speak save 
 English, unless it be Elizabeth, who affects a smat- 
 tering of French, and this is the unkindest cut of all 
 for Ludovika, who has a notion that whatever is 
 French is pretty much immoral. 
 
 Besides the Germans, who predominated in num- 
 bers, there were several families of Americans, by 
 which I mean that they were the progeny of native 
 stock for so many generations back that they knew 
 not from what foreign nation they sprung, and 
 could not, therefore, call themselves anything else 
 but Americans, though by the test of sentiment and 
 sympathy they were not more American than the 
 rest of us. There were Swedes, too, unless they 
 were Norwegians or Danes, for I never was expert 
 at making out the difference, although a difference 
 there doubtless is, for if you make a mistake about 
 it and call a Norwegian a Swede, or the other way 
 about, there is hard feeling, and this I mostly avoid 
 by calling them all Scandinavians. There were 
 some Bohemians by the name of Rudin, who always 
 seemed to me much like Germans, apart from their 
 tongue, which was like nothing at all ; some Polish 
 people, bearing the name of Sobraski, the one and 
 only name out of that nation which I ever could 
 speak with anything Hke confidence; some French 
 
32 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 called Paul, from the city of Strasburg, originally, 
 in the province of Alsace, and by that, if Ludovika is 
 right, properly Germans, and a finer family you sel- 
 dom see, especially the girls, one of whom has be- 
 come a professional elocutionist and travels far and 
 wide; and last, but perhaps not least, some Irish, the 
 Flavins. Flavin worked in a great shoe factory, and 
 I had good hopes of him from the first, knowing 
 something of the Irish temper, and having heard him 
 say, more than once, that he had enough of a boss 
 looking down his collar all the time. 
 
 But now there came up the question whether 
 these people, though chosen, would permit them- 
 selves to be called? It was some months transpir- 
 ing, and during that time there ensued such a fury 
 of visiting back and forth among us, together with 
 unceasing argumentation, as seems incredible to 
 look back upon, in all the light of the benefits that 
 were to accrue, but which in the time of it, with only 
 uncertainty in sight, was natural enough. We had 
 only our Sundays for it, since we were all tied to our 
 work throughout the week, but that did not greatly 
 matter, inasmuch as we could easily talk enough in 
 one day to keep us busy thinking during the other 
 six, especially as serious thinking was rather a new 
 business for us. The bulk of the speech, anyway to 
 begin with, fell to me, as the sponsor, so to say, of 
 the scheme, and never in all my life have I been more 
 thankful than then I was for the gift in virtue of 
 which it is about as easy for me to talk as to breathe, 
 which is saying a good deal, for, although there 
 have no doubt been times when this facility of ex- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 
 
 33 
 
 pression was to my disadvantage, it has been, on the 
 whole, a great solace. I was driven to the limit, I 
 assure you, in those days, and Sunday after Sunday 
 bedtime found me with my throat quite raw, to such 
 a degree had it been worn with discoursing. 
 
 All the while I had the firm and efficient support 
 of Ludovika, for once she had thoroughly considered 
 the matter, in her calm way, the practical benefits 
 were too apparent to allow her to withhold her favor, 
 and a German's favor means something. She could 
 say but Httle, not having the aptitude, but that little 
 was very much to the point, and very telling, and she 
 developed, on this occasion, a surprising knack for 
 appealing to hidden motives. She found weak 
 points, as it were, in the opposition, which had alto- 
 gether escaped me, and while I was battering away 
 at the solid wall and making but slight progress, she 
 would be stealing round and effecting an easy flank 
 movement. Of course, nobody can talk as fast or 
 as loud as an Irishman, least of all a German, but 
 persuasion is a mysterious thing. There is more to 
 it than the sweep of rhetoric. 
 
 But despite the merit of our proposal, and the 
 convincing presentation my wife and I gave it, it 
 was an uphill job, this of bringing thirty men and 
 women to our way of thinking. For a long time, 
 anyway, it seemed a long time, they were not by 
 any means to be induced to take us seriously. They 
 would have it that we were only joking, and the men 
 badgered me, while the women poked fun at 
 Ludovika. More than once, I am ready to confess, 
 my blood ran pretty warm, at being so ill met in an 
 3 
 
34 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 effort to do good, even though it was chiefly the 
 good of myself and mine that I had in view, and 
 I was in considerable danger of losing my temper, 
 and the wonder is that an Irishman, whose hair is 
 undeniably on the red (Elizabeth is for omitting this, 
 but I have bound myself to speak the truth and 
 hew to the line, let the chips fall as they may, and 
 will hear of nothing of pertinency being suppressed 
 or glossed over) — the wonder is, I say, that such a 
 person ever restrained himself. It was Ludovika's 
 doing, once more. As often as I found myself op- 
 pressed, in this fashion, I had only to look over at 
 her, to behold her unruffled calm, with the jibes and 
 jeers sliding off her, as if she wore an armor and 
 they were arrows, and I was instantly made ashamed 
 of my impatience and glad to begin all over as 
 sweetly as possible. 
 
 And even when, at length, we had made them 
 understand that we were in earnest, there were still 
 great difficulties. In a way there was, as I say, a 
 common fate among us, to give us something like a 
 common point of view, but against this advantage 
 there was to be reckoned the inevitable dissimilarity 
 of character and temper, whereby some were more 
 sanguine than others, and some keener than others 
 to grasp the possibilities. There was, moreover, on 
 the part of nearly all, an affectation of unconcern, a 
 cynical indifference, the effect of a deliberate effort 
 to give the morrow never a thought, inasmuch as it 
 held such a poor prospect. I could not blame them, 
 for I had been of that way myself, deeming it the 
 part of courage to turn my back on the outlook, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 
 
 35 
 
 when it lowered darkly, and I am not saying that 
 there may not be, in some cases, a commendable 
 pluckiness in such an attitude, but notwithstanding, 
 it was no such attitude as I wished my friends to 
 have, for I knew that until they should look the fu- 
 ture squarely in the face, and be thoroughly fright- 
 ened by it, they would lack the motive to taking 
 measures of precaution. Unless they should lift up 
 their eyes and see the ruin falling upon them, they 
 were not likely to stir a hand to ward it off. They 
 would come back at me with the old saying that 
 what can't be cured must be endured, and what must 
 be endured is better endured cheerfully, and I 
 seemed to be tugging at a dead weight, they were 
 that unwilling. Patience is truly a great virtue, and 
 it is none the worse for being cheerful, but it 
 may cease to be such, and in more than one way, I 
 fancy. At one verge of it there's but a thin line 
 to divide it from cowardice, which is as certainly a 
 great vice. As for borrowing trouble, that is little 
 more than a mere phrase, by which a foolish man 
 describes the prudence he doesn't wish to have the 
 trouble of. What right have you or I to say that a 
 condition can't be cured? How do we know that, 
 as long as there is life in us, and a shred of strength 
 with which to try to cure it ? 
 
 Another difficulty, and I count it by no means the 
 least, was a certain aversion to farming, as a calling, 
 which put itself in evidence at once the discussion 
 took on the character of seriousness. These silly 
 people, and I am the readier to call them so because 
 I do not leave myself out, being conscious of some 
 
36 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 such prejudice in my own bosom, though I affected 
 to be vastly astonished to discover it in the others, — 
 these silly people, I repeat, looked down on agricul- 
 ture with something like contempt, for all it is the 
 noblest, and the fittest, as it was the first occupation 
 of mankind. The women, especially, sniffed at it 
 most disdainfully. Farming, quoth they, with all 
 the air of final conviction, was the proper business 
 only of such as were too stupid to manage any 
 other. Anybody could be a farmer, but nobody was 
 a farmer who could be anything else. Whoever 
 went into the work of tilling the soil thereby wrote 
 himself down a simpleton. To their minds, the mere 
 looks of a farmer were conclusive evidence of his 
 inferiority, for he always appeared a gawky fellow, 
 of whom it was easy to believe that he never came 
 to town without getting himself swindled by the 
 most specious of tricks. I have to stop and sit back 
 and roar with laughter, as I write these things down, 
 they seem that ridiculous to me, now, but in the 
 time of them I can tell you I did not laugh. Truly I 
 hardly knew what to do to make head against this 
 prejudice, the more as I secretly shared in it, and 
 do and say what I might, still had, down in my 
 heart, something of a sense of shame over becoming 
 a farmer, something of a feeling that I was about 
 to confess myself a failure. But, at last, happily 
 enough, as the event proved, I hit upon the expedi- 
 ent of setting foolishness against foolishness. I well 
 knew, not being wholly devoid of shrewdness, what 
 a passion poor people have, however much they may 
 deny it, for imitating the rich, and I pointed out to 
 
A Lord of Lands. 37 
 
 my friends liow that the wealthy classes, who could 
 go where they liked and do what they liked, were 
 fairly falling over one another in their eagerness to 
 get out and live on the soil, near to nature and 
 nature's God. If farming was good enough for 
 them, who were we to despise it? I am almost 
 ashamed to add that the plea had its effect. It was 
 quite true that the thirst for novelty which ever 
 possesses rich idlers was just then finding its grati- 
 fication in a prodigious rush for the country, and we 
 all knew it, and when I had directed attention to it, 
 embellishing the picture with some few strokes of 
 color, I was rejoiced to hear less and less talk about 
 farming being degrading. 
 
 But, on the other hand, helping greatly with the 
 work of persuasion, there was all the time the de- 
 light which every man has in laying plans. It was 
 never very hard to fan up a discussion as to the 
 best sort of a house to build, and as for the rest, 
 dense ignorance did not render us modest, any more 
 than it usually renders men modest. You would be 
 amused, I know, could you have heard us go on as 
 to the most advantageous arrangement of a barn, 
 and the proper uses of the various kinds of soil, for 
 the most part in all gravity, though now and then 
 somebody's keener sense of the ludicrous would up- 
 set him. Where the average man has to speak an 
 opinion on a matter or else rest under the imputation 
 of knowing nothing about it, he is pretty apt to 
 speak, and by this circumstance we were drawn on, 
 and touched with a serious interest, which was what 
 we needed above all things else at the moment. 
 
38 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 And after awhile there appeared the cheering evi- 
 dence that our friends were talking among them- 
 selves, and not only when they had Ludovika and me 
 to set them on. They were planning on their own 
 hook, and that meant they were on the way to 
 conviction, with a good chance of arriving in due 
 time. 
 
 Meanwhile and about incessantly, I kept hammer- 
 ing away with the main argument. 
 
 " Men and women," I would say, for while to 
 call them ladies and gentlemen would in nowise 
 strain the truth, and might be more polite, the other 
 fashion suited me best as having a superior intimacy 
 and warmth about it, " men and women, think of it. 
 As you are situated now, you are barely able to 
 make a living when all goes well, and who dares 
 reckon on all going always well ? We pay our way, 
 and have nothing left, when we swim at the top of 
 the wave. That is the highest prosperity we know 
 or ever can know. Of course there will be unpros- 
 perous times for us, as there are for everybody. A 
 man will fall sick, or he may lose his job. These 
 misfortunes are coming to such as us every day, and 
 we shall not be exempt forever. As for sickness, the 
 wonder is that we are ever well, what with all the 
 noxious vapors that abound in the city, and the 
 abominable food we have to content ourselves with 
 for lack of means to procure better. As for losing 
 our jobs, who does not know that no man is secure 
 in his employment unless he is a highly skilled work- 
 man, with a powerful union to uphold him ? We are 
 only a grade removed from the common laborers, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 39 
 
 and our kind are as numerous as the sands of the 
 sea, which means that there are many men for every 
 job. And right here let me say, to those who look 
 upon farming as degrading, that nothing can be 
 more degrading than this matter of a man having 
 forever to lick the boots of his boss in order to keep 
 his employment, and even at that never knowing 
 when it will fall his turn to be laid off. I submit 
 that you owe it to your manhood to get away from 
 such conditions if you can. A farmer can at least 
 hold up his head and look tyrants and rich men in 
 the face. And then, too, there are your children. 
 Are you satisfied with what you are able to do for 
 them? Do you like the prospect before them, of 
 your boys going on the streets to sell papers, say, 
 or slaving half their life as apprentices in order to 
 gain the right to earn a precarious livelihood at 
 last; of your girls going into some vile factory to 
 toil early and late for a dollar a week, not to 
 speak of the vice which is all the time flaunting 
 its attractions in their faces? I will freely say 
 that I do not, for one. We have all of us, I know, 
 as we should have, the wish to make our children 
 in everything better men and women than we are. 
 It is by that feeling, planted in the breasts of 
 parents, that the Lord builds up and improves the 
 races of the earth. But if we stay here, what is 
 more certain than that our children will be, not 
 better, but worse ? Is it not the record of the past 
 that poor people who dwell in cities generation after 
 generation, get all the time poorer, and sink steadily 
 lower in the social scale? I think it is, my friends." 
 
40 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 Understand, I do not profess to quote myself 
 literally, in this, and by way of forestalling the sus- 
 picion that I have imputed to myself a discourse 
 more polished than is due, I will candidly confess 
 that in those days I used often, nay, almost in- 
 variably, to say done for did, and seen for saw, not 
 to mention the lesser assaults on the King's English 
 which I was all the time committing. On the 
 present occasion I doubt not in the least that I 
 lapsed into numberless errors, and these of the 
 gravest character, especially with my consuming en- 
 thusiasm making me forgetful of the little I then 
 knew of correct usages. But the gist of it was as I 
 have written it. I have observed it is a law of 
 literature that people speak far more elegantly in 
 print than ever they speak out of it, and if I am to 
 be a personage in a book, I presume I may claim 
 for myself the usual privileges. The gist of it, I 
 repeat, was as I have written it. If my argument 
 shall appear less coherent than a thoroughly good 
 argument should be, I answer that my great wish 
 was to carry conviction, and I despised no motive 
 or principle from which I might hope to derive help. 
 Not only to their reason did I appeal, but to their 
 whims as well, their unreasonable loves and hates. 
 The reason is a grand thing. It distinguishes us 
 from the beasts. But after all, what we do, at last, 
 is more often determined by the passions which we 
 have in common with the beasts, than by the high 
 human faculties, and he who would procure things 
 to be done has this to remember. 
 
 Well, the business prospered, on the whole, and 
 
A Lord of Lands. 41 
 
 went forward steadily, though so slowly for some 
 time that it seemed almost at a standstill. It was 
 a hopeful sign when the others began to join issue 
 with us, I mean with Ludovika and me, and to 
 raise up objections in a serious vein, instead of 
 turning it off with some joke, and to stand their 
 ground manfully, and while you might think, hap- 
 pening upon us casually, that we were come to 
 daggers' points, such was the vociferation, it really 
 marked a gratifying progress over the hstlessnes's 
 we began with. It never came to pass, of necessity, 
 that the thirty-two of us were gathered together at 
 one time and place. None of us lived in a large 
 house, and to have found room for us all, we should 
 have had to hire a hall, or have met in the park, 
 where our bickerings and chafferings must have 
 broken the public peace, to judge of the noise thirty- 
 two would have made by the uproar of eight or 
 ten. 
 
 And another hopeful sign was when, in now and 
 then a controversy, my wife and I found ourselves 
 not altogether alone. Indeed, that was the begin- 
 ning of the end, and henceforth we gained fast. 
 Every voice which should be joined with ours was 
 at the same time a voice less to be joined with 
 the opposition, and winning one was equal to win- 
 ning two. And so they came over, one by one, or, 
 rather, in pairs, for where there is a material in- 
 terest at stake, families are not likely to divide. 
 Man and wife, though there be but little of fine 
 sympathy between them, can but hardly shake off 
 the sense of a worldly community of interest. They 
 
42 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 will quarrel till all is blue, between themselves, and 
 yet, as against the rest of the world, they are one. 
 A friend of mine who was a policeman for many 
 years informed me that he always had a great hesi- 
 tancy about arresting any man whom he caught beat- 
 ing his wife, though the occasion often arose, be- 
 cause he knew by experience that the woman, by all 
 chances, would go into court and defend the man, 
 and make the officer out a great liar and meddler in 
 matters which did not concern him. 
 
 The day was carried, at length, almost before we 
 knew it. No doubt these men and women offered 
 all of them about an equal resistance to appeal, and 
 w^ere brought up to the point of conviction pretty 
 much together, like a platoon marching abreast, to 
 the end that they came over, when come they did, 
 with a rush. At all events, that was how it turned 
 out, and you can picture my relief and joy. 
 
 In one sense, however, the victory was not com- 
 plete, though perhaps it was complete enough. 
 Three families were not to be persuaded, even 
 with the other thirteen united in a solid phalanx 
 and bearing down on them with so great a force 
 of exhortation and entreaty. They had to be 
 given up, after all, and I will say, hoping my words 
 may never come to them, that I was not sorry, for 
 my own part. They belonged to a class of poor 
 people, all too common in the towns, whose disad- 
 vantages, extensive enough at best. Lord knows, are 
 augmented by their own vanity, a class, in a word, 
 the most hopeless of all. These particular specimens 
 took a comfort in their slender white hands and deli- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 43 
 
 cate nails, not only the women, mind you, but the 
 men, as well, and more I need not say of them. I 
 have no quarrel with the woman who takes pains to 
 be beautiful, for she is created, I hold, somewhat 
 as the flowers are, to beautify the world with her 
 presence. But assuredly it is no part of a man's duty 
 to be beautiful, beyond the beauty which inheres in 
 strength and wholesome health, and in nothing does 
 he so belittle himself as in making it his serious con- 
 cern. Elizabeth suggests, with gracious gentleness, 
 that I have herewith laid myself open to the danger 
 of being misunderstood. Will not people think, says 
 she, that you are actuated by the motive of the fox 
 in the fable, who had lost his tail, and henceforth 
 blamed the custom of wearing tails? I see the point, 
 but I recall nothing that I have written. It is true 
 that I am not beautiful myself, but making all due 
 allowance for that circumstance, am I not justified 
 in thinking him no true man who will not wrestle 
 with an unkind fate for fear of spoiling his hands? 
 But be that as it may, the project suffered not at 
 all by reason of the failure to land these three fam- 
 ilies. There are plenty of good fish left in the sea, 
 always, and we had no difficulty in finding suitable 
 material to fill the vacancies. I say vacancies, for in 
 order to carry out the plan I had in my mind, and to 
 the disclosure of which I am now coming, there had 
 to be sixteen families in all. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Chinese are a wonderful people, and I am 
 not ashamed to have taken counsel of them. Some 
 there are who deem them almost less than human, 
 but will even these deny that they are wonderfully 
 endowed with the faculty of picking figs off thistles, 
 for it comes to hardly less than that, when you con- 
 sider what head they make against adversity by 
 sheer thrift and patience and industry? No doubt 
 there is that about them, at the same time, which 
 permits something to be said on the other side, for 
 we all have our faults, I believe, and yet, withal, it 
 strikes me as a great pity if we can find no place and 
 use in our country for a race so amazingly gifted in 
 these most useful qualities. I have more than half 
 a notion ( of course I am one of the fellows who see 
 visions and dream dreams, and of course such fel- 
 lows are not to be trusted far out of sight, but none 
 the less they sometimes have a power of suggestion 
 not to be despised) — I have more than half a notion, 
 I say, that if we were to let the Chinese freely in, 
 while making it a condition that they go and take up 
 their residence on the bad lands of our western 
 plains, we should wake some fine morning to dis- 
 cover that there were no bad lands, any more, only 
 good lands, a rose garden where a desert is, now, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 45 
 
 and always will be a desert, most likely, so long as 
 there is none but the fastidious white man to make 
 aught else of it. I have just that confidence in thrift 
 and patience and industry, in Chinese or whosoever 
 else. They would find water for the parched soil, 
 and if they could do no better, they would fetch it 
 to their thirsty crops in buckets slung over their 
 shoulders. 
 
 But that is neither here nor there. What the 
 Chinese have to do with my narrative arises out of 
 their peculiar manner of farming in their own 
 country, by which they divest the business com- 
 pletely of that loneliness which, more than anything 
 else, I daresay, has got it shunned and disliked with 
 us. For Chinese farmers, as I am informed, manage 
 to live none the less in an urban fashion, in villages, 
 huddled together very snugly and cosily in the midst 
 of their fields, like sociable ants in a hill. Such ap- 
 pears to have been the custom of ages, fallen into at 
 first by way of protection against robbers, and kept 
 up for a like reason, for aught I know, though the 
 incidental benefit of human company is assuredly 
 sufficient to justify it, without any other. Of course, 
 our robbers being mostly of a different sort, we were 
 not thinking of them, but altogether of the other 
 thing, when we resolved to take the Chinese for our 
 pattern, in so far as our circumstances would let us. 
 It is a meritorious principle, I am convinced. I find 
 myself looking forward, with the eye of prophecy, 
 to the time when farmers generally will be living in 
 this comfortable fashion, and then there will be one 
 more great discovery for the Chinese to claim, a 
 
46 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 greater, possibly, than gunpowder, and not unworthy 
 to stand with printing, even. 
 
 With these preHminaries, I come to the unfolding 
 of our plan. 
 
 First and chiefly, we would gather our sixteen 
 homes together, into a compact group, in the midst 
 of our lands. This was the point of departure, in all 
 our discussions, the condition given and understood 
 in every argument. But we were not long in dis- 
 covering that what was an easy arrangement in 
 China might have its difficulties when translated 
 bodily to America. A Chinese farmer, thanks to his 
 wonderful frugality, will manage with the fruits of 
 a small piece of land, usually less than an acre, I am 
 told, and so it comes about that a great many farm- 
 ers can live in one village, without the need of any 
 of them having to go far to reach his field. For the 
 most obvious reasons, we had to have more land than 
 that. We made up our minds, at last, after endless 
 consideration, that each family of us should have 
 forty acres. It did not seem to us safe to undertake 
 to make a living off less than forty acres, and we 
 were not without misgivings as to the sufficiency of 
 even that measure, particularly in view of the one 
 hundred and sixty acres which the government allots 
 to a family under the homestead law, as if to in- 
 timate that so much were necessary. But we were 
 kept from fixing upon a larger tract, partly by the 
 expense of it, but mostly by the seeming impossi- 
 bility of bringing a larger tract within the scope of 
 our principle. Sixteen farms of a hundred and sixty 
 acres each would make, together, a vast territory, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 47 
 
 and with all the homes grouped in the middle of it, 
 some of us would have a long way to travel to their 
 fields. On the other hand, sixteen farms of forty 
 acres each would make in all an exact section, or a 
 square mile, so that the little village in the middle 
 would be barely half a mile distant from the fur- 
 thest corner of the furthest field, not an oppressively 
 long journey, by any means. As for the adequacy of 
 so little land to the support of so many persons, we 
 flattered ourselves we might learn still further of the 
 Chinese, and get more into the kind of farming 
 which looks to making the very utmost of the capa- 
 bilities of the soil, the kind of farming which I now 
 know to be called intensive, as opposed to extensive, 
 which latter, let me say, is not farming at all, but 
 a species of devastation. We blundered into quite 
 the right conclusion, as it was our luck to blunder 
 more than once, first and last. Forty acres are 
 amply enough for any man, if he does his duty by it, 
 and as for keeping a family, half as much, tilled as 
 it should be, would answer nicely. 
 
 And so, we said, we should get us a section of 
 land of six hundred and forty acres, or a square 
 mile. 
 
 This tract we should divide, first of all, by two 
 roadways, of the standard breadth (when we found 
 that roads were regularly four rods wide, we were 
 tempted to make ours two, which seemed ample 
 enough, but, though we greatly begrudged the land, 
 we held to our first design, and have never since 
 been sorry for it) running through, the one from 
 north to south and the other from east to west, and 
 
48 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 meeting in the middle to mark by their intersection 
 the site of our village. Perhaps I should add that 
 the boundaries of a surveyed section run always 
 north and south and east and west, since you may 
 not be aware of that fact, and I wish you to have 
 the picture of our tract in your mind, how that the 
 roads divide it into four square and equal parts. 
 
 In the village, we resolved, each family should 
 have a plot of five acres, and every plot should face 
 out on a roadway. There would be four plots, of 
 necessity, which would face on two roadways, gain- 
 ing thereby a distinction and possibly some solid ad- 
 vantage, but this was no practical embarrassment, in- 
 asmuch as the distribution was to be determined by 
 lot, and no man could justly complain, no matter 
 what fell to him. We thought best, for what reason 
 I cannot now recall, to have these home plots make 
 up in the aggregate a compact square, as nearly as 
 possible, to which end they had to be of various 
 forms, some narrower and some wider, a matter 
 which we puzzled over a good deal, and never got 
 fairly fixed until we left it to expert draughtsmen, as 
 our good fortune permitted us to do, without cost, 
 a little later. But every plot, no matter what its 
 form, should contain five full acres, no more and no 
 less. 
 
 As for the rest of the land, lying out, it was to be 
 divided into sixteen equal fields, to be distributed by 
 lot likewise. The roads must take out some few 
 acres, and for that reason each man's farm would in 
 the end fall short of an even forty. Moreover, there 
 might turn out to be some waste land in the section, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 49 
 
 although we hoped to avoid this by prudence in se- 
 lecting, or, if prudence failed, by good luck. But 
 whatever waste land there should be, it was to be 
 counted out of the holdings of all, share and share 
 alike. 
 
 Now, one thing we agreed to from the start, and 
 it was this, that there should be no community of 
 title. It was not that communism, or socialism, was 
 ahogether a bugaboo to us, as it is to some, whereby 
 they take fright and cover their eyes and stop up 
 their ears at the mere sound of the name, but rather 
 that there was in us all that sentiment which is per- 
 haps the greatest obstacle the socialists will have to 
 encounter, I mean the aspiration to ownership, the 
 wish of every man to be a Lord of Lands, to have 
 his own little bit of earth all for himself, with none 
 other to lay the shadow of an adverse claim upon it. 
 Possibly this sentiment is indeed a relic of the feudal 
 system, and out of date, but none the less it exists, 
 and if I am any judge there is a comfort in it, and 
 always will be, unless men shall be made over. But 
 anyway, the one agreement that we voted unani- 
 mously, at once, and without debate, was the agree- 
 ment to own no land in common. Each village plot 
 and each outlying field should be exactly described 
 by metes and bounds and be deeded to some one of 
 us to have and to hold, his heirs and assigns for- 
 ever, exclusively. We should be associates and part- 
 ners in many things. Until we got our feet fairly 
 under us, we should work in common, and the fruits 
 of our labor should be common property, but the 
 land, which was to be the foundation of our estate, 
 4 
 
5© A Lord of Lands. 
 
 should be touched by no community. Every man's 
 land should be his own. 
 
 And now, at length, with the plans elaborated out 
 to such a minuteness of detail, there came up the 
 question of the wherewithal. Whence was to come 
 the money to do all these grand things with ? 
 
 Not one of us had a penny in the world beyond 
 what he would need to pay the bills of the butcher 
 and the grocer and the landlord at the end of the 
 month. More than one of us, I have good reason 
 to suspect, had less, either in hand or in prospect, 
 than he owed. 
 
 Of course, you will understand that this question 
 of the wherewithal had been lurking not far off all 
 the time. No practical man is likely to go far in lay- 
 ing plans without some thought of the means of 
 carrying them out, and the question of the where- 
 withal began to be raised pretty early in our palaver- 
 ing. But as often as it was raised, I made shift to 
 wave it aside, as being out of order, until the process 
 of persuasion should be complete. Possibly we 
 should never be persuaded, and if so, what was 
 the use of considering the means ? Naturally, these 
 men and women, not in the least used to looking up 
 to me, were not likely to be beguiled into any sort 
 of assurance by my easy manner, but they were in- 
 duced to let this main question lie while they an- 
 swered the others. But now, as I say, there was 
 nothing else to discuss. Everything was settled but 
 the means. Whence was to come the money ? 
 
 Everybody looked at me, as why should they not ? 
 I was expecting nothing less, and while I was most 
 
A Lord of Lands. 51 
 
 anxious to avoid wholly the appearance of consider- 
 ing myself a leader and chief man, lest I arouse 
 jealousies, I very plainly saw that the situation 
 tolerated no backwardness. So I took the question 
 to myself, and replied to it, what do you think? 
 Why, as coolly as you please, I told them that the 
 money would be forthcoming. They had not to fear, 
 I said, that the money would not be forthcoming, 
 provided only we stood ready to do our part. Get- 
 ting the money, I declared, warming, was the easiest 
 part of it. If we were resolved to make the hazard, 
 and, having made it, to stand loyally one by another 
 until we had achieved success, to do our honest best 
 in sunshine and in storm, to set our faces resolutely 
 to the front and keep them there, come what might, 
 then, quoth I, the matter of the mere money needed 
 should give us little or no concern. 
 
 They stared at me very hard while I was making 
 my speech. They had got beyond laughing at me to 
 my face, but I could see there was not a soul of them 
 but scorned me in his heart, for a fool, excepting 
 only Ludovika, and I think she believed in me only 
 because she suspected me of being supernaturally 
 gifted, and would not have been much surprised were 
 I to go out and draw a stream of dollars from the 
 penstock in the back yard, as Moses drew water 
 from the rock. It is a vast comfort for a man to be 
 married to a woman who believes in him, even 
 though her faith shall be but a slender compliment to 
 her judgment, for where is there the man who does 
 not, in his own bosom, deem himself a great fellow, 
 and deserving of confidence ? 
 
52 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 I was by no means as confident as I wished to 
 appear. In point of fact, my assurance proceeded 
 mostly from a certain obstinacy of hope, which 
 would not suffer me to think of failure, however 
 unpromising the outlook, now that the wish for a 
 different life had taken possession of me. To such 
 a pitch of intensity had that wish risen, that I was 
 fairly consumed with it, and the thought of its being 
 denied me at last was more than I could bear, though 
 all the while I knew only too well there was only the 
 narrowest chance of anything but denial. And 
 when I saw what the temper of these people was, 
 how that the least wavering on my part, just now, 
 was likely to spoil everything, you will readily be- 
 lieve that I was strongly moved to assume the air 
 of perfect confidence, however far from being con- 
 fident I really was. It lay perfectly plain before me 
 that the structure which we had reared with all 
 these difificulties rested, for the time being, as upon 
 a species of temporary false-work, upon me. My 
 resolution supported their resolution, as matters 
 stood, and until their resolution should be firmly 
 fixed, like mortar in a wall, the false-work must 
 stand staunch. The first sign of doubt or hesitancy 
 on my part might well bring everything down in 
 ruin all but hopeless, for if they were to lapse back 
 into the slough of despond now, what was ever to 
 lift them out again? If I acted a lie, let it stand so, 
 and I will cheerfully take the consequences. It was 
 an important moment, for me, and for them. After 
 all the labor and worry of getting the situation in 
 
A Lord of Lands. 53 
 
 hand, I was not the man to let it slip away from me 
 for the lack of a bit of bluff. 
 
 " About how much money," said I, quietly, when 
 nobody else spoke, " is it going to take ? " 
 
 At that, I could gather from their faces, they were 
 doubting whether I had not gone clean out of my 
 head, excepting Ludovika, of course, who bridled 
 warmly, divining the thought of the others and re- 
 senting it, as became a faithful wife. But straight- 
 way, before they could give way much to their sus- 
 picions, I fell to figuring, out loud, being most 
 highly primed for the purpose. By this I thought 
 to get them involved in a computation, and to start 
 anew the bickerings and chafferings over details, 
 whereby their misgivings should the more easily be 
 forgotten. 
 
 *' Suppose," I said, " we pay ten dollars an acre 
 for our land. I am told that so much will still buy 
 very good land, well situated, and it will put a debt 
 of only four hundred dollars on each family." 
 
 Still nobody answered a word. They were too 
 much astonished, now. They were staggered by my 
 easy view of a debt of four hundred dollars, which 
 you will understand was a sheer affectation on my 
 part, for no one in his heart could be more fright- 
 ened by the thought of such a thing than I was. 
 But for all their astonishment, and silence, they were 
 beginning to think a little, feebly, and to wonder 
 about the merits of the proposal, though in a dazed 
 way. Watching their faces narrowly all the time, I 
 knew pretty well what was in their minds. 
 
 ** Now I ask our friends who are practical 
 
54 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 builders/' I went on, still in the serene tone of a 
 purely business talk, " if it is not possible to get up 
 a house fit for a family to live in, for another four 
 hundred dollars? " 
 
 And here I had them. My question drew the 
 carpenters out, forthwith, since it touched their pro- 
 fessional pride, and when a discussion had sprung 
 up among them, the others could not long hold 
 aloof. Every man believes himself above all else 
 practical, and possessed of at least a rudimentary 
 knowledge of the commoner trades which have to 
 do with building. As for a dwelling-house, how 
 it should be put up and what it need cost, this is 
 especially a point on which every man deems him- 
 self competent to speak, and now, with the carpen- 
 ters laying down the law, the others were not slow 
 to take it up, and move amendments, so to say, and 
 argue their several contentions, all of which served 
 admirably the purpose of keeping up the interest at 
 a fever height, while crowding the really hard ques- 
 tions somewhat into the background. 
 
 Nor were good, solid results lacking. We were 
 able to assure ourselves, thus, that we might get up 
 as good a house for four hundred dollars as would 
 ordinarily cost twice that sum, and this in virtue of 
 the strength which lies in union. Because we had 
 three carpenters among us, to build our houses, and 
 the rest of us in a position to repay them with labor, 
 such as the breaking up of their land, the soaring of 
 their seed, and all the like of that, — because of these 
 things, I say, the cost of the buildings, in money, was 
 virtually cut in two in the middle. We threshed the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 55 
 
 straw over thoroughly and were quite agreed, at 
 length, that there was no reason why we should not 
 have a very good sort of house, as we were used to 
 thinking of houses, comfortable as need be, even 
 though not highly finished, for four hundred dollars, 
 and what warmed our hearts especially, a house not 
 less than vast in its proportions, as compared with 
 the coops in which we had always lived. It made the 
 women stare and gasp when we spoke seriously of 
 a kitchen fifteen feet square, as if they found them- 
 selves at a loss to grapple with the notion. 
 
 When we had settled everything about the houses, 
 to our satisfaction, and there was a lull in the talk 
 for lack of material, I came forward once more, for 
 I had been very willing to take an inconspicuous part 
 in the proceedings, as long as they could be induced 
 to go on without me, not from any lack of vanity, 
 but because I had wit enough to perceive that while 
 I was not to be backward, I was not to put on airs, 
 either. We were not done with computation and 
 finance, yet. 
 
 " If we add tw^o hundred dollars for incidental ex- 
 penses," said I, '* and this is a generous allowance, 
 because at first we can own tools and teams in 
 common, and after the first few months our keep 
 will come out of the land, but adding two hundred 
 dollars in order to be sure and safe, we have a debt 
 on each family of a thousand dollars. Now what is 
 a debt of a thousand dollars for a strong, brave 
 family to bear? " 
 
 I need not tell you that a thousand dollars was an 
 enormous sum, to us, not more so to my friends than 
 
5 6 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 to me, though I smiled placidly while they, all about 
 me, were ready to faint, almost. But was not that 
 owing to the narrow way of looking at affairs, into 
 which we had fallen? I conceived that it was. For 
 a man who had never in his life possessed more than 
 fifty dollars at once, or some such matter, and that 
 only during the few hours, or perhaps minutes, it 
 took him to distribute it about among his creditors, 
 a debt of a thousand dollars, supposing, by any 
 stretch of imagination, that he could possibly con- 
 tract such a debt, bore an uncomfortable likeness to 
 an Alpine avalanche, or something equally over- 
 whelming, but that, I had persuaded myself, was no 
 proof that he might not have another idea of it, put 
 him in different circumstances. And this was the 
 point which I had now to bring out, clearly. 
 
 " The interest on a thousand dollars, at six per 
 cent," said I, glibly, having made my calculations all 
 in advance, *' would be sixty dollars a year, or five 
 dollars a month, or a dollar and a quarter a week, or 
 some twenty cents a day. That is something less 
 than any of us pays for rent, as the case stands, and 
 when we live in our own houses, we shall save the 
 rent. Of course, we've no reason to fear a debt of 
 a thousand dollars. We can carry it easily. You 
 are thinking of the impossibility of carrying such a 
 burden, in addition to your present burdens, and in 
 the face of all your present uncertainty, when that 
 is not the way of it at all. In point of fact, this new 
 burden will take the place of your present burdens, 
 doing away with them altogether, and with this 
 
A Lord of Lands. 57 
 
 great gain that it will give you certainty instead of 
 uncertainty." 
 
 Who is there, no matter how sorely poverty may 
 have stricken him, but delights to dabble in high 
 finance, in theory? It is the most agreeable of all 
 planning, I suppose. My speech was rather long, 
 which circumstance gave our friends opportunity to 
 get their breaths and collect their thoughts, and I 
 was hardly done when somebody took up the thread, 
 not to break it with doubts, if you will believe me, 
 but to add strands to it, with opinions, as to rates of 
 interest, and all that, put forward somewhat gingerly 
 at first, perhaps, but more and more with the confi- 
 dent, expert air, until presently they were all at it 
 again, figuring away in a warm glow of earnestness. 
 
 But that could not last forever. There were diffi- 
 culties, and putting them off by no means disposed 
 of them. It was Flavin who arrived first at the 
 river, so to say, and asked how we were to get over, 
 and I was not surprised at this, for the Irish have 
 discernment. Flavin is Irish, you will recall. His 
 given name is Patrick Sarsfield. If my grandfather, 
 or my father, even, for that matter, although he was 
 not the bigot his ancestors were, could know of me 
 sustaining relations of amity with a man christened 
 Patrick Sarsfield, I doubt not he would turn in his 
 grave. But the merciful Lord forbid I should hold 
 any of the ancient grudge when there is no longer 
 any ground for it. A truer man than Flavin never 
 lived. 
 
 '' What security have we to put up," said he, 
 
S8 
 
 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 " that should ever induce any man in his senses to 
 lend the likes of us a thousand dollars?" 
 
 " Plenty of it," said I, stoutly, for here was the 
 rub, and I needed all my brass in order not to seem 
 dashed. " A very great abundance of the best 
 security." 
 
 Flavin shook his head. He was not to be blamed. 
 Though by nature of a temper most buoyant, he was 
 just after closing up an account with a chattel- 
 mortgage shark, who had very nearly skinned him, 
 what with the outrageous interest he charged, and 
 all because of the poor man having no security to 
 put up. It was no wonder if he took the gloomy 
 view, and could think of nothing but the security. 
 
 And now, a silence having fallen on the others, 
 I ran on again, something in this wise : 
 
 " Men and women, I tell you, the main security is 
 our standing together, our being loyal to one an- 
 other, and willing to endure hardship in the hope 
 and promise of better things to come, content with 
 little, in the prospect of more, glad to call it enough 
 even though it should be a good deal less than we 
 like. It is not the money so much that we need be 
 asking about, as it is the heart in us to carry the 
 business through. Have we the heart? If we have, 
 that is the security for the money. This may sound 
 like a fairy-story to you, but I know what I am talk- 
 ing about, and if you will only think of the matter 
 a little, you will see I am right. If we are together, 
 to stay together, we've got over tlie hardest part of 
 the way, but mind what I say, to stay together. 
 Consider all that that means. If, here and now, we 
 
A Lord of Lands. 59 
 
 can take one another by the hand, and pass the 
 solemn word that we will stand by, and be patient 
 under all trials, and put up bravely with one an- 
 other's faults, if we can do this, then I engage to go 
 out and get what money we need, or, what comes to 
 the same thing, the credit. I will say that I already 
 have assurances, and I would gladly say more, for 
 I wish to have no secrets from you, but until these 
 assurances take more definite form, I must stop with 
 this. Now, my friends, are we together ? Have we, 
 in other words, the security to pledge? " 
 
 Well, with that, we shook hands on it, all round, 
 in three sessions, if I remember aright, and for each 
 of these I had to repeat my speech, or the substance 
 of it. It got to be something stilted and perfunctory, 
 at last, till I feared for the effect of it, but having 
 carried the first session, I had the help of their in- 
 fluence with the second, and when that had been car- 
 ried, there was a double weight to help with the 
 third. Only Ludovika heard me upon all three 
 occasions, and she, far from experiencing a lessening 
 of interest by reason of the repetition, was carried 
 to a higher pitch of emotion each time, until, after 
 it w^as all over, she confided in me the belief that an 
 initiation into the Royal Neighbors could hardly be 
 more moving than our little ceremony had been. 
 Ludovika was ever far too strict in her religious 
 notions to belong to a society outside her church, but 
 whatever was veiled in secrecy had a great fascina- 
 tion for her. 
 
 Flavin was the last member to take me by the 
 hand, not from any backwardness or hesitancy, but 
 
6o A Lord of Lands. 
 
 merely by accident. He gave me a good Irish grip, 
 that sent a warmth to the cockles of my heart. 
 There was no doubting Flavin, but he would have 
 his word. 
 
 *' It strikes me," said he, " that we've gone and 
 built a very fine castle in the air." 
 
 " We have, my friend," said I. " We have so. 
 And now, if you please, we'll proceed to rope it 
 down to earth and live in it." 
 
 This flash of pleasantry, though nothing very 
 witty, raised a laugh, and served very well to make 
 end of the solemnity, which had gone far enough. 
 
 Often and often have I wondered since, just how 
 much faith those people put in me, that time, and in 
 later years I have asked them about it, but without 
 getting a definite reply. They appear not to be able 
 to tell me. Quite likely they were somewhat of my 
 own mind, of which I can only say that as I look 
 back upon it, I seem to have been dreaming. It is 
 all very like a dream, now, hard to grasp in its 
 details. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 And now we come to the other bit of print I have 
 mentioned, the auspicious bit, this time. 
 
 Far enough am I from believing all I read in the^ 
 newspapers. With the fever of curiosity which pos- 
 sesses the common mind, in these days, driving the 
 journalists to be continually guessing at events 
 which have not as yet come to pass, and even to be 
 fabricating events, the wonder is that we have as 
 much as a kernel of fact to a bushel of lies. Nor be- 
 cause the newspapers garnish an item with flaring 
 headlines do I feel compelled to estimate its import- 
 ance accordingly, for that trick is too transparent to 
 fool even a dull man. Notwithstanding all this, it 
 was a piece out of a newspaper which gave me the 
 courage to say what I had said to my friends, and 
 the assurances which I spoke, in my confident man- 
 ner, of having had, were nothing more than the as- 
 surances it contained. Why I believed in it above 
 the mass of matter it was buried in, or how it ever 
 came to catch my eye at all, what with the cursory 
 way I had of reading, in those days, I shall not 
 venture to say. I cannot help but notice, whenever 
 I intimate to anybody that I was under the guidance 
 of a higher power, that I challenge doubt, though 
 it should not be expressed otherwise than by a 
 
62 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 queer look of the eye, and very likely it is presump- 
 tion in me to think of a higher power taking so 
 much trouble in so small a matter. 
 
 But whether or no, this bit of print took hold of 
 me. I have it yet, spread under a bit of glass to 
 save it from being quite worn out, which it falls but 
 little short of, through having been carried during 
 many years in my pocket-book, and often taken out 
 and read, and inasmuch as it is not long, I will quote 
 it to you in full : 
 
 "The Toronto Globe recently announced that Mr. William Whyte, 
 second vice-president of the Canadian Pacific, has for several months 
 had under consideration a proposition for the subsidizing of British 
 immigrants on a scheme of big proportions. It is proposed that the 
 railway company build houses and farm buildings on lands which it 
 sells to British immigrants, allowing them to pay for the improve- 
 ments, as well as the land, on long annual instalments." 
 
 When I read this, it came over me, as with a 
 flash of light, which I suppose was inspiration as 
 it befalls an ordinary man, that it was after all 
 something besides the possession of material, tang- 
 ible property which gave a person credit in the 
 world of finance, cold and heartless though that 
 world undoubtedly was. Here was a great corpora- 
 tion, devoid of soul, with not so much as a spark of 
 sympathy about it, seriously thinking of trusting 
 penniless immigrants in the sum of hundreds, per- 
 haps thousands of dollars, each. The only condition 
 was that they should be British, and what that sig- 
 nified, at least in the view of the Canadian Pacific, 
 there was no doubting. These British immigrants 
 were thought, by that token, to have character. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 63 
 
 Their being British was taken as a proof of charac- 
 ter, and what it all came to was that capital stood 
 ready and willing to take character as security for 
 money lent, I mean, of course, capital as it lay in the 
 hands of the great men, the real captains of industry, 
 and not as its courses were directed by the chattel- 
 mortgage sharks and other small fry. If a man 
 could prove his character, he might borrow money 
 on it, even though he had not a coat to his back. 
 
 Nor was this all the good cheer my bit of print 
 yielded me. There was in it moreover an intimation 
 of the great wish railway companies have to fill 
 up their territory with farms, and the intimation was 
 all the stronger with the reason of it lying on the 
 surface. Farms meant freight and passengers to 
 carry, that is to say, business for the companies. A 
 million acres raising corn, instead of weeds and 
 brambles, should inure something to the stock- 
 holders, such that they could afford to go to con- 
 siderable expense to bring about the change. It was 
 not out of charity that the Canadian Pacific would 
 trust these immigrants, but out of a keen commercial 
 sense scenting profit. There was benefit to accrue 
 to both parties. The immigrants would not be 
 more beholden to the company than the company to 
 the immigrants. In short, it was, in the best sense, 
 a bargain. 
 
 The more I explored the ground of my new hope, 
 the firmer it appeared to be, though I was careful 
 to bridle my enthusiasm and to hold myself, as far 
 as I could, to a strictly businesslike view. If only 
 some railway company, with vast lands hungering 
 
64 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 for settlers, worthless as they stood, yet holding the 
 richest possibilities, — if such a company could be 
 made to see us as we were, why not farms for us, 
 also, with buildings already built, plenty of time to 
 pay for them, and comfortable homes to live in the 
 while? To be sure, the condition was no easy one, 
 and I knew it for what it was. Character was a 
 hard thing to prove, even by long trial, and who 
 who were we to expect shrewd men to suspend 
 their habitual distrust in our favor? In point of 
 fact, it looked very like no thoroughfare, a final halt 
 then and there, only that I thought I knew a man 
 to turn to, who certainly could help us, and perhaps 
 would. 
 
 This man was none other than Jones Baring. 
 
 Jones Baring was the president, great man, and 
 master mind of a railway built out through the 
 newest part of the country, where most of the land 
 was still unoccupied. These facts amply attested his 
 ability to help us. As for the other part, his will- 
 ingness, it was encouraging to reflect that he was 
 famous as a philanthropist. Of course I had no 
 notion in the world of appealing to charity, and 
 indeed would have resented any offer of charitable 
 assistance, but none the less it was a comfort to 
 recall that this man was known as a kindly man, 
 who was never too deeply engrossed with making 
 money to have a thought for less able and less 
 fortunate fellows (and to discredit no man's ability, 
 and least of all Jones Baring's, no ability will avail 
 without opportunity, and opportunity is the feast 
 which the many lay for the few to eat, wherefore the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 65 
 
 great owe something to the small and should never 
 forget the debt, although plenty of them do). But 
 what more than anything else put me in mind of 
 Jones Baring, was the circumstance of his being my 
 boss. By this I mean that it was in the employ of his 
 railway I worked, along with many hundreds of 
 other switchmen, and many thousands of the various 
 crafts connected with the business. But thousands 
 though we were, all of us, down to the section hands 
 and wipers, took a pride in the president, as if he 
 were in some sense ours, and boasted of his great 
 and good deeds, and took to ourselves a certain 
 credit for them, and whoever should speak dis- 
 paragingly of Jones Baring in the presence of any 
 of Jones Baring's men, never went unanswered. 
 
 When I say I knew^ him, you are to understand 
 no more than this, that I had often seen the Old Man 
 (it was thus we called him, out of affection, wholly, 
 and without a thought of disrespect) and had what 
 might, by some stretch, be termed a bowing 
 acquaintance with him. That is to say, I made bold 
 to bow to him, whenever I met him, whereupon he 
 invariably bowed back, with a pleased look, though 
 I could see he did not place me in the least, what 
 with all the myriads of more important men he had 
 to keep in mind. Once upon a time he had stopped 
 to speak with me. It was down in the yards where 
 I was at work. He conceived a curiosity concern- 
 ing something I was helping to do, and, for the 
 reason that I was nearest to him, asked me about 
 it. We had quite a little talk, and he displayed an 
 ignorance of the business which I now suspect v*^as 
 
 5 
 
66 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 mostly assumed for some purpose of his own, but 
 which I was enormously proud to enlighten, and at 
 the moment took to be quite genuine. I retained 
 the pleasantest recollection of that lonely inter- 
 view, for it seemed to argue him an approachable 
 person to whom aught savoring of form and 
 ceremony was foreign. Jones Baring w^as our man, 
 I thought, and by degrees there took possession of 
 me an assurance that if I could only get fairly at 
 him, to put the matter before him in its best light, 
 his friendly interest could be w^on. In this I had 
 none too much confidence in Jones Baring, his good- 
 ness and greatness, but I had altogether too much in 
 myself, as I presently discovered. Writing these 
 lines, in my old age, I marvel at nothing so much as 
 the readiness with which I could beguile myself, in 
 those days. But I am deeply thankful it was so, 
 for otherwise I never should have had the heart to 
 do what I did, not that what I did was such a 
 brave thing, but it was nevertheless a thing which 
 no man misdoubting the outcome would ever set 
 himself to do. 
 
 Once more the condition was a hard one. How 
 w^as I to get to see the Old Man? Of course, I 
 knew that in order to be in any sense master of his 
 time, he had to deny himself to many who wished to 
 see him, leaving his visitors to hired underlings 
 to sift out, and all but the most important to 
 be turned away. Such business as mine would 
 be given over to some clerk, in the regular rou- 
 tine, and I had nothing whatever to hope of any 
 clerk. Unless I could put the case directly to 
 
A Lord of Lands. 67 
 
 the Old Man himself, it was gone against me at 
 once. What I had to propose was too unusual to 
 be grasped in all its significance by subordinate 
 minds, set to run in grooves like a machine, 
 untouched by imagination. I might as well make 
 my talk to the brick walls of the general office. 
 
 I thought some of the chance of the Old Man 
 happening along, as every now and then he did, for 
 he had quite a fancy for nosing about to see how 
 things were going, but, while it was possible that I 
 should catch him in that way, there were substantial 
 objections to my taking advantage of such a chance 
 meeting. In the first place, I should be at work, 
 and while my boss might be pleased to talk with 
 me, about his own business, and on his own in- 
 itiative, for me to broach something of my business 
 was quite another affair. I could imagine how he 
 would freeze up into a state of polite attention, even 
 if he did not turn on his heel and leave me in 
 disgust. Besides, there would be my mates stand- 
 ing about, with their ears open to hear what I was 
 saying to the president, and no way to keep it from 
 them. This last was decisive. I knew I could not 
 do our plan justice, under such circumstances. 
 
 My next expedient, and the first which I attempted 
 to put into execution, was to get myself a letter from 
 the walking delegate of our union, by the power of 
 which I should penetrate into the holy of holies 
 where the Old Man kept himself. This walking 
 delegate, who was one Michael O'Fallon, was ac- 
 customed to running in and talking things over in a 
 famiHar way with the president, as often as the 
 
68 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 union had a complaint to make, which was about all 
 the time. It was the Old Man's practice to attend 
 to all the business with the unions, in person, or 
 anyway, a good deal of it. He used to say, whether 
 he seriously meant it or not, that the contentment of 
 his help was his largest asset and he could not afiford 
 to leave it to others to look after, and I verily believe 
 he lost nothing by his policy, since he had a way 
 with him in virtue of which the boys were often 
 content to give up what the airs of the average boss 
 would only make them the more determined to 
 have, to the end that they went away without what 
 they came after, but no less ready withal to swear 
 by Jones Baring. That was how it came about that 
 the several walking delegates were on pretty familiar 
 terms with the Old Man, and could go in through 
 the lines of sentinels almost any time. I have no 
 doubt a letter from O' Fallon would have procured 
 me the access I sought, although I might have had 
 to wait somewhat. I w^as well acquainted w^ith this 
 person, and he was in some degree obliged to me for 
 his place, which was a good deal sought after, for 
 I had been a candidate myself, with a respectable 
 following, and had withdrawn in his favor, so that 
 I never once dreamed of his making any difficulty. 
 But here I had reckoned without the host. The 
 Irish are peculiar, and I must say, in candor, that 
 a sense of gratitude is not apt to stand much in the 
 way of their ambitions, and what is perhaps no less 
 unfortunate, they are often unable to carry authority 
 without swelling up most prodigiously, to the great 
 detriment, not to say complete extinguishment, of 
 
A Lord of Lands. 69 
 
 those truly amiable qualities which give them their 
 charm. Anyway, O'Fallon put a block to my wheel, 
 too quick. 
 
 "What fer?" says he, when I had asked him 
 would he give me a letter which should get me to 
 see the Old Man face to face. " What fer? " says 
 he, and there was a pomposity about him which 
 greatly nettled me. 
 
 " What fer? " says I, in a mocking way, for even 
 then I knew better than that the correct use of the 
 language. "Cat's fur," says I, "to make kitten 
 breeches of. None of your business," says I, forget- 
 ful of what it was I was after, and thinking but to 
 wound him. 
 
 He was jealous, no less. He would have none 
 but himself bask in the sunshine of the royal pres- 
 ence, and least of all one who was in some sense 
 a rival and stood a show of getting his place. If 
 I let this fellow, says he to himself, enter the sacred 
 portals, says he, what may not come of it? If the 
 boys get to hear of it, says he, what but they may 
 get to thinking Matthew Fitzgerald would make the 
 better walking delegate? That was the way he 
 looked at it. I might have put him right with a 
 word, for now I had no ambition to be walking 
 delegate, but never the word would I speak. I read 
 all that was in his little mind, and I resolved there 
 and then, with more heat than wisdom, although it 
 proved to be for the best after all, to ask no favor of 
 him, and with that, no pause intervening, I told him, 
 pointedly, where he could go to. I was less averse 
 to the employment of strong terms then than I have 
 
7© A Lord of Lands. 
 
 been since the girls grew up, and I put it to him 
 warm and spicy. Of course he was made furiously 
 angry by my disrespect. " Curse o' Crummell ! " he 
 snapped back at me, and while this may sound very 
 innocent to those who do not gather the implications, 
 it is in fact about as insulting a remark as a south of 
 Ireland man can have recourse to, in conversation 
 with a north of Ireland man. I very well knew what 
 his intention was. He meant to reflect on my ances- 
 try, and the manner of their settlement, and while 
 I have in my heart no rancor for what happened 
 hundreds of years ago, and is fit only to be forgotten 
 by a generation pluming itself on its fine Christian 
 sentiments, I was not the man to leave an open taunt 
 unanswered, especially in the temper which held me 
 at the moment, and I answered him strictly in kind, 
 and my allusion, which I will not write down 
 literally, threw Newton Butler in his face, and he 
 boiled in his wrath, while I turned and left him, 
 pretty much ruffled up myself. 
 
 It was a foolish business, and the foolishness was 
 not all the other fellow's, either, but though I had 
 been as wise as Solomon, the outcome would have 
 been the same. There was no getting to Jones 
 Baring by that way. And what other was there? 
 
 When I left O' Fallon, in the manner I have 
 described (by the by, a Kerry man told me, once on 
 a time, saying a learned priest told him, that by 
 good rights only four families of the old Irish could 
 put the " O " at the front of their names, this having 
 been originally the mark of some sort of a nobility 
 among them. As I recall them, not having 
 
A Lord of Lands. 71 
 
 especially charged my memory with the matter, 
 these families are the O'Connells, the O'Donnells, 
 the O'Briens, and the O'Neils. I'm not so sure 
 about the O'Neils being on the list, but one thing 
 I am sure of, nothing was said about O'Fallons, and 
 this would have been a most excellent thing to have 
 retorted on the fellow, and sorry I was not to have 
 bethought myself of it until later) — when I left 
 this person, I was that wrought up and heated 
 I was hardly aware of what I did next, or what 
 my purpose was in doing it. In the natural course, 
 I came to my senses presently, to find myself 
 walking off as if I wore the seven league boots, 
 headed straight for the general offices, and already 
 half-way there. I asked myself what I intended, 
 and could not well answer, but still I kept on, 
 though perhaps at a lesser speed, what with my 
 uncertainty. But as I went, I considered, and as 
 I considered I grew bolder, until at length I 
 was conscious of a purpose to proceed manfully to 
 Jones Baring's door, and ask to see him, all without 
 credentials apart from my decent appearance. 
 Why should I not, since I was a free citizen of a free 
 country, and Jones Baring himself was not more? 
 And with that I came to the general offices. 
 
 It was a great hive of a place, such as I was not 
 at all used to being in, full of the deafening clatter 
 of telegraph keys and writing machines, and people 
 swarming in and out like angry bees whom it were 
 not safe to touch or in the least interfere with, until 
 I was all but made giddy dodging them. It was, 
 as you may say, the great seething brain of the 
 
72 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 railway, and the various departments, designated by 
 lettering on the doors, were those amazing cells, 
 wherein thoughts and impulses have their rise. 
 Anyway, it was a very wonderful place, and I was 
 pretty much lost in looking about me, when a man 
 with a brusk, though not unfriendly manner, an 
 Irishman, once more, if there is any significance in 
 blue eyes with black hair, came up to me and asked 
 me what I wanted. And now I put on my suavest 
 manner, having taken a firm resolution not to be 
 trapped into any further display of temper, and hav- 
 ing well before my mind, moreover, the danger of 
 being taken for an anarchist with foul designs, but 
 all of this without abating anything of a fitting 
 dignity, and told him I had come to see Mr. Jones 
 Baring, and would he be so kind as to inform me 
 where I might find that gentleman? He shot a 
 rather suspicious glance at me, I thought, but with- 
 out hesitation pointed me to the furthest corner of 
 the ground floor. He did not ask me what my 
 business was with Mr. Baring, which made me 
 wonder, at last, if I was not mistaken as to his 
 nationality. 
 
 In the corner indicated I found a door, in a 
 general way not differing from the many doors 
 which I had passed to reach it, but with the words, 
 The President, painted across its glass panels. This, 
 then, was the primary cell of the brain, the very 
 marrow. There was nobody standing guard out- 
 side, not less to my astonishment than to my relief. 
 Was it such an easy matter to get to the Old Man, 
 after all ? I opened the door, with my heart in mji 
 
A Lord of Lands. 73 
 
 throat, in a way, yet elated withal at the prospect of 
 coming at once to the object of my desires, and went 
 in. I expected to find the Old Man, right there 
 and then, in my ignorance, as you may call it, for 
 ignorant I was of the ways of the world into which 
 I had penetrated, and I was taken a good deal aback 
 to discover nobody in the room but a strange youth 
 with a cold eye, which he fixed upon me in a manner 
 no less than disconcerting. After he had looked me 
 through rather than over, to his satisfaction, which 
 he was only an instant doing, he asked me, politely 
 enough, what he could do for me, and when I repUed 
 that I wished to see Mr. Baring, he waved me to- 
 ward a door at the other side, and bade me to 
 walk in. It has ever been a puzzle to me, why he 
 let me go by him, that day. I suspect it may have 
 been because he saw that I was a workingman, and 
 deemed it prudent to indulge me, knowing the Old 
 Man's way with his help. But at all events, this 
 functionary, whom I came to call, for my own pur- 
 poses, the grand outer guard, passed me on. 
 
 Well, to make a long story short, the Old Man 
 was not in the next room, either, but the man who 
 was there, the grand inner guard, according to my 
 way of designating him, was quite as wonderfully 
 obliging as the other fellow had been, no doubt for 
 the same reason, which, as I say, I do not pretend to 
 fathom, and when I assured him, respectfully, but 
 with something of the air of insisting, that I wished 
 to confer with Mr. Baring personally, he suffered 
 me to proceed, into the room beyond. Now I was 
 in high hope. In this room, I told myself, as I laid 
 
74 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 my hand on the brass knob of the door, I should 
 find the old man. 
 
 I was mistaken, still. There was nobody, nor was 
 there any desk, only some chairs and a sofa. But 
 I had barely a moment to look about me, and to 
 begin to wonder what next, when there entered 
 from the opposite side a very civil negro, who knew 
 how to ask impertinent questions without seeming 
 to be impertinent, a remarkable gift in one of his 
 race, who, by reason of the unhappy and unjust 
 odium which clings to their color, get themselves 
 thought presumptuous by doing no more than other 
 men do without offense. He asked me what my 
 name was, and what I wanted. I was very ready 
 to tell him my name, but as for the rest, I repeated 
 what I had said to the others, that my business 
 was with Mr. Baring. With an extremely affable 
 bow, which somehow confirmed me in my belief 
 that I was getting forward, the darkey vanished 
 through the door he had come in by. But he was 
 back in a twinkling, and bowed again, and stood 
 holding the door open for me to pass on. 
 
 Here, beyond any possibility of doubt, I thought, 
 the Old Man would be found. I had my greeting 
 ready at the tip of my tongue, the greeting which I 
 had carefully composed and conned over, and I 
 was stricken dumb, quite, when I encountered, not 
 Jones Baring, whose rugged face and stalwart figure 
 I well knew, but a frail, pallid little man, the most 
 colorless human being I ever saw, without any ex- 
 ception. His skin was faded, his eyes were faded, 
 and his hair was faded. Much of his hair, indeed, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 75 
 
 had faded quite away, and the Httle that remained, 
 being of the exact color of his skin, was to be seen 
 only on the closest scrutiny. 
 
 " This must be the grand eunuch," I said to my- 
 self, being that disappointed, and out of patience 
 with all the ceremony, which of course I had no 
 right to be. But I did not forget my manners, and 
 my outward demeanor, I believe, was sufficiently 
 good. 
 
 The man looked up at me in a wesk and watery 
 way. 
 
 "What is your business with Mr. Baring?" he 
 said. 
 
 For the fourth time, now, I explained that I 
 wished to see Mr Baring personally. My business, 
 I said, was of such a nature that no one but him- 
 self could well attend to it. The man paused in the 
 work he was doing, while I spoke, and listened, and 
 looked me over, swiftly. It was a meaning glance 
 which he gave me, none of your fiery, stinging, 
 disdainful glances, but carrying its burden of mean- 
 ing, none the less. I knew he was making up his 
 mind, and that easily, that no person of my stamp 
 could possibly have any such business with the 
 president as nobody else could attend to. 
 
 " Mr. Baring," he said, when I had finished, " is 
 engaged at present." 
 
 It was a marvel how much like a stone wall in 
 my way this mere whiffet of a fellow made himself 
 seem. I thought of pleading with him, and at 
 once I was aware that I might as well whistle to beat 
 the wind. 
 
76 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 "When may I see Mr. Baring?" I asked, very 
 submissively. 
 
 " That is quite uncertain," answered the man. 
 " He is very busy at all times." 
 
 And with that he contrived something of a myster- 
 ious nature, something which was neither a word, 
 nor a look, nor a gesture, but more like an impalp- 
 able emanation thrown out in what way I could 
 never guess, though I have thought of the matter 
 much, and the instant effect of it was to make me 
 understand, reluctant though I was to give up, that 
 he was done with me, would have no more of me, 
 and the quicker I got out, the better it would be 
 for me. He spoke not another word, and he gave 
 me not another glance, and he went back to his work 
 as if I was not there, but all the while he was casting 
 out his emanation, and before I well knew what 
 I was about, I was passing out, by the inner guard, 
 and the outer guard, into the public corridor. 
 
 It was a flat, flat failure. I had no right to be cast 
 down by it for it was at best a chase after a rainbow, 
 but I was cast down, notwithstanding. Such is the 
 character of the sanguine temper. It never dis- 
 counts the effect of defeat, by anticipating the sting 
 thereof, but revels in the joy of imaginary victory, 
 and so gets itself prostrated by the very quality of 
 its hopefulness. I had already lost my day, as far 
 as my work and wages were concerned, although it 
 was not yet noon, for, having put a substitute in 
 my place in the crew, the day was his. I could do 
 nothing, therefore, but loaf away the weary hours, 
 chewing my bitter cud of discontent. But hope, like 
 
A Lord of Lands. 77 
 
 truth, will rise again, no matter how cruelly crushed, 
 and if it was my misfortune to expect too much, it 
 was my good luck to be incapable of brooding long. 
 I chewed and chewed, and by degrees the cud was 
 less bitter. I resolved to make a sort of a quiet 
 holiday of it, and in that resolution I strolled about 
 the streets, and watched the people, and stared into 
 the windows, and rejoiced in the little comedies 
 and pitied the little tragedies which are forever be- 
 ing enacted where mankind mass themselves to- 
 gether. And by the time night fell, and I betook 
 myself home, I had formed new plans for the mor- 
 row, and gathered a fund of new courage to carry 
 them out. Or, rather, I should say, I had taken the 
 old plan to my heart afresh, for I could think of no 
 new expedient to try. I could only go and go and 
 keep on going, until by sheer persistency I should 
 force my way. If, now that I had made a trial of 
 them, the barriers had proved more formidable than 
 I expected, I screwed up my courage commensur- 
 ately. Next morning, I set my substitute to work 
 once more, and once more betook myself to the gen- 
 eral offices, and the door in the far corner of the 
 first floor. 
 
 They made short shrift of me, this time. I got 
 no further than the grand outer guard. He assured 
 me that Mr. Baring was engaged, and slid me out 
 as freight-handlers might slide a barrel of salt, that 
 is to say, with as little apparent effort on his part, 
 and as little resistance on mine. He had something 
 less of the manner of a stone wall than the grand 
 eunuch, being a younger man, with better blood in 
 
yS A Lord of Lands. 
 
 his veins, and better color in his eyes, but he had 
 amply enough of it to manage me very nicely. I 
 came off with a low estimate of myself, lower, per- 
 haps, than I ever seriously entertained before or 
 since. What was become of all the diplomacy which 
 I had thought myself the master of, and of the firm 
 patience, which should be the property of any man? 
 I was perplexed and bewildered and pretty nigh 
 desperate, and if the course I proceeded on seems to 
 you obviously vain and foolish, pray consider my 
 condition of mind. 
 
 I began wisely enough, for the following day I 
 worked in the yards, in the old way, throwing 
 switches and coupling cars. They had us down in 
 the milling district all day long, where the work 
 always crowded thick and fast, more than fifty men 
 of us in one crew, with a shifting engine as big 
 as a battleship and as spry as a cricket. There was 
 no chance to lay new plans or grieve over the wreck 
 of the old ones, that day, I assure you. Indeed, I 
 all but forgot the great affair, I was that occupied, 
 until it came time to knock off, and then I was too 
 tired to think to any purpose. 
 
 Just what prompted me to skip that day, I cannot 
 now tell you. If I knew in the time of it, I have 
 forgotten. Possibly I thought to gain something 
 in the favor of the seneschals and chamberlains of 
 the royal household by giving them a respite, or it 
 may be that, not rightly knowing what to do, I 
 yielded to the long established habit of going to 
 work. But anyway, I gained nothing. When I 
 appeared before them next day, very bright and very 
 
A Lord of Lands. 79 
 
 early, Mr. Baring was still engaged, and then and 
 there I vowed a mighty vow that no more rest would 
 I give them. I would call every day, nay, twice 
 or thrice a day, as often, perhaps, as once every 
 hour, all with the idea, if you will believe it, of 
 making a nuisance of myself, decent and irreproach- 
 able, to be sure, but none the less a nuisance. I 
 would compel them to let me have my way, in order 
 to get rid of me. 
 
 Can you conceive of anything more absurd? I 
 confess that I cannot, at this distance of time. 
 
 The grand outer guard stood up under the in- 
 fliction in superb style, I will say that for him. He 
 showed the staying-power of a thoroughbred. Be- 
 yond a doubt, he would have thanked me if I had 
 given him the pretext for having me thrown out 
 by the scruff of the neck, he was that tried in his 
 heart, but I held to my resolution and gave him none, 
 and he was not to be outdone in good manners. You 
 would laugh to see me, I know. I was mostly 
 unpractised in the arts of urbanity, but in the in- 
 tervals between calls I had nothing to do but school 
 myself to a sweetness of behavior, to the end that he 
 could do nothing but bow and smile and return me 
 the old answer, without being downright rude, and 
 this was not in him. I would give something to 
 know what he thought of me. 
 
 It settled down into a test of endurance betwixt us, 
 so to speak, and for some time it seemed hopeless, 
 from my point of view, he had himself under such 
 perfect control, and was that able to conceal his 
 feelings. But at length I imagined I caught, in his 
 
8o A Lord of Lands. 
 
 high-bred smile, a certain faint sickliness, such as 
 might betray a restiveness grown too great to be 
 longer hidden. You will not readily believe how 
 much I was encouraged by this. If, such was my 
 fatuous thought, I was getting on his nerves, as this 
 straw would go to show, I was making progress. 
 Sooner or later, something should come of it. I 
 was becoming intolerable, and by that token I must 
 conquer. 
 
 Well, something came, whether of it or not I do 
 not undertake to say, and soon. The very next 
 day, and on the occasion of my first call in the 
 morning, instead of waiting for me to put my usual 
 question, if Mr. Baring was still engaged or no, 
 this young man took the initiative to himself, and 
 giving me a look which told me before ever he 
 opened his lips that he was done with trifling, said : 
 
 "If you will state your business, it will be sub- 
 mitted to Mr. Baring in its turn." 
 
 Between his look and his language, I was con- 
 siderably put out of my reckoning. I tried to frame 
 a honeyed reply which should say that my business 
 was with Mr. Baring personally, and none else, but 
 I found there lay too strong upon me sundry mis- 
 givings as to what the grand outer guard might 
 have it in mind to do next. I felt as if I had been 
 outflanked by his change of front, and put on the 
 defensive where, a little before, I had thought my- 
 self in control of the situation or something like it. 
 I could not shake off the presentiment that he was 
 offering me his ultimatum, and that I had to choose 
 between it and nothing. The whole loaf which I 
 
A Lord of Lands. 8i 
 
 had counted on was slipping from me. Nor was 
 the half loaf of the proverb within my reach, only 
 this thinnest of thin slices, but even it was better 
 than no bread. I felt a sickness of heart, for my 
 business was indeed with Mr. Baring personally. 
 Unless I could speak with him face to face, I knew 
 only too well my business was fit to vanish into thin 
 air, and become no business at all. To the ordinary 
 commercial sense, unsublimed by imagination, what 
 appeal had I to make? Could I hope to meet with 
 any other than the ordinary commercial sense, in the 
 cold-blooded fellows strung along through these 
 rooms? I thought of all this, standing there under 
 the eye of the grand outer guard, but another thing 
 I thought of more. Could I afford, in justice to 
 the interest which I had in charge, to let the 
 opportunity pass, unpromising though it was? If 
 I let it pass, might I not regret it to my dying 
 day? 
 
 Well, the upshot was that I submitted the busi- 
 rtess, as persuasively as I could, with the chill at 
 my heart all the time. The boy, for he was hardly 
 more than that, listened in a perfectly respectful 
 manner. Whatever there may have been in his 
 mind, there was no trace of a sneer on his face. 
 He could not have borne himself with more 
 deference. Twice he asked a question, which 
 showed that he was attending to what I was saying, 
 and that he really wished to get the matter quite 
 right in his understanding. But so far from having 
 sympathy with me and my purpose, by which I mean 
 not the sympathy which verges on pity, but rather as 
 6 
 
82 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 it looks toward enthusiasm, he was as devoid of 
 anything of the sort as the chair in which he sat. 
 All the while I had to struggle with the feeling that 
 if he ever laid the matter before his chief, he would 
 do so perfunctorily, faithful to the letter, perhaps, 
 but with no flash of the spirit to carry conviction. 
 
 When I had finished my discourse, and I was not 
 long, because my tongue, ordinarily so free, seemed 
 all but tied, he said : 
 
 " You need not put yourself to the trouble of 
 calling again. Leave your name and address, and 
 I will communicate with you by mail, at once Mr. 
 Baring comes to a decision in the mattter." 
 
 He had me beat, with that. I could not come 
 back without seeming to doubt his word, and that 
 were folly. If I came back, I should be guilty of 
 disrespect, and lay myself liable to harsh treatment. 
 A resentment swept over me, with the consciousness 
 of my helplessness, and I fiercely thought of coming 
 back, to haunt them, by way of vengeance. But 
 my resentment did not blind me quite. I could still 
 see my family, dependent upon me, and my friends, 
 whose welfare I was bound to bear in mind. I 
 might cut off my own nose, to spite my face, but 
 cutting off theirs was another thing. The family is 
 sure the bulwark of society, in more ways than one, 
 and in no way more so than in the restraint it lays 
 upon the rough passions of men. What wicked 
 deeds of violence men have been kept from by hav- 
 ing their families to think of, only the good Lord 
 who sees their minds may know, but many and great, 
 I am convinced. And so I came speedily to my 
 
A Lord of Lands. 83 
 
 senses. The boy was too many for me, and that 
 was all there was of it. He was rid of me, and I 
 was nowhere. I put the best face on the business 
 that I could, thanked him, and bowed, and walked 
 out as if I could not have been better suited. I had 
 the pride for that. 
 
 Here was hope prostrate again, more prostrate 
 than ever. If the game was not up, as far as Jones 
 Baring was concerned, I knew not what else to 
 think of it. If my proposal ever got to him at all, 
 it would not touch him. It was like trying to tap 
 a feed wire through a thickness of insulation. 
 There was no possibility, none whatever, of any 
 feeling being communicated through those clerks, 
 and without some communication of feeling, what 
 should warm the Old Man to any sort of interest? 
 He would begin with distrusting it, as the way was 
 with men who are all the time being importuned 
 with projects, and this distrust there would be noth- 
 ing to overcome, with only the grand guard or the 
 grand eunuch mumbling over my words to him. 
 What had appeared dismally probable, only, soon 
 got to appear dismally certain, as I brooded and 
 brooded. 
 
 Of course, I said to myself, bitterly, they would 
 not write to me. What I had taken for a promise 
 to write, in my thick-headed innocence, was no 
 promise at all, when I came to dissect it, only the 
 merest intimation. It was a part of their smooth 
 way of getting rid of me, of overcoming my poor 
 arts, which had once seemed to me so effectual. 
 What they had promised was no more than this, to 
 
84 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 write me when Mr. Baring came to a decision. 
 They had engaged to lay the case before him, in 
 its turn, and when its turn should come, they them- 
 selves were to decide. If it never came, as easily 
 it might never come, if they but chose, then there 
 would be no decision upon it, and no call to write 
 to me. So I argued, or rather raged, and told my- 
 self I should get no letter. 
 
 For the rest of the day, I walked the streets, and 
 fumed and fretted, and worried the hours away, 
 growing sulkier and uglier all the time. Of course 
 I had only myself justly to blame, but you know 
 human nature too well to imagine I thought of that. 
 The sun went down upon my anger at last, and I 
 retired to rest in a most unkind and unprofitable 
 frame of mind. But, as luck would have it, I was 
 too tired out, with one thing and another, to lie 
 awake and nurse my wrath. Before I knew it, I 
 was asleep, and I slept soundly, and when morning 
 dawned, I felt a good deal better, for there is noth- 
 ing quite like sleep to mend matters. And now I 
 went off to work, as of old, in some conscious- 
 ness of my blessings, which were after all by no 
 means few, nor of a character to be long over- 
 looked by a man of my disposition. I had told 
 Ludovika never a word of what I was up to all 
 this while, but of course she could guess that it had 
 to do with our great project. And she knew, too, 
 none better, having with all her simplicity the full 
 of a woman's power of divining the minds of those 
 she loves, that I had met with a crushing defeat of 
 some sort. Nevertheless, or perhaps I should say 
 
A Lord of Lands. 85 
 
 because of this, since it is in the nature of a good 
 wife to be cheerfulest when her husband stands 
 most in need of cheer, she wore her best air of 
 comfortable gladness, not with the remotest sugges- 
 tion of rejoicing in my discomfiture, but rather 
 with the manner of knowing the worst, and feeling 
 for it, but withal rising above it. I can never forget 
 how she flew about her household duties in the 
 lightsomest way, that morning, and how especially 
 she made a most prodigious ado over packing my 
 dinner in my tin bucket, as if nothing in the world 
 could be so important as that, and how, at the last, 
 as I was going, she brought the baby out from the 
 crib for me to kiss, and hereupon I was that affected 
 by her gentle contentment and rare bravery, as 
 contrasted with my own sourness, I ended with kiss- 
 ing her, a good, hearty smack, somewhat to her 
 surprise, I doubt not, since it was not customary 
 any more. All day I worked, with this sweet influ- 
 ence over me, keeping these fine things in mind as 
 much as possible, trying to persuade myself that they 
 were the things which make life worth living, after 
 all, and nothing else matters much, if only they be 
 had, and doing my utmost to forget the unpleasant 
 part, as one tries to forget an evil dream. 
 
 I was wrong about the letter, as it turned out. 
 When I came home, that night, long after dark, for 
 it was the season of the shortest days, there lay an 
 envelope on my plate at the table. It was an 
 uncommon thing for a letter to be delivered at our 
 house, and the air was fairly electrical with curiosity 
 deeply moved, especially on the part of the children. 
 
86 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 I saw the envelope the instant I stepped over the 
 threshold, and I sprang forward and snatched it up 
 with an eagerness and an undignified haste which 
 I was presently sorry for. In the corner of it, that 
 is, in the upper, left-hand corner, the name of the 
 company was printed, and under this the portentous 
 words, Office of the President. This told me, at 
 a glance, as it had doubtless told the others, and 
 inflamed their curiosity to an all but ungovernable 
 pitch, where the letter was from. I was completely 
 floored, as you may say, the outcome was that 
 different from what I had looked for, and, strive as 
 I would to bear in mind the vanity of human hopes, 
 and the all too common fate of human expectations, 
 I was tremendously exalted. My head fairly swam, 
 between my excitement and my strenuous effort to 
 control it. I tore open the envelope with hands 
 which trembled so that I was next to unable, and 
 read something like this (I cannot pretend to give 
 the exact words, since I stuffed the letter into the 
 fire at once I caught the gist of it) in machine 
 writing : 
 
 " Mr. Baring regrets that his engagements do not permit him to 
 take up Mr. Fitzgerald's proposal, at this time." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The wickedest sentiments I have ever been guilty 
 of cherishing were those, I believe, which I cherished 
 that night. For the moment, I seemed to myself 
 the illest-treated man living, and in my mind I 
 made all humanity my foe, excepting, of course, 
 my family, who were a part of me. The letter, 
 maddening and crushing and humiliating as it was, 
 was not the only sling and arrow of outrageous for- 
 tune which I had to endure. When I had thrust it 
 into the fire, and it had contributed its bit of heat to 
 warm my tea, though I was far enough from giving 
 it credit for even that much geniality, I drew out the 
 little packet I had got from the paymaster that day, 
 and handed it over to Ludovika, without opening it 
 myself, in accordance with the custom I had followed 
 ever since we were married. Then I went to wash 
 myself at the sink, but I observed her out of the tail 
 of my eye, and I saw her open the packet and take 
 out three bills. Three bills were the usual number, 
 but whereas they were commonly two twenties and 
 a ten, they were two tens and a five, to-night. That 
 was the net result of all my enterprise, my meager 
 pay cut in two. She said never a word about it, nor 
 did I, and I wonder more at myself than at her, 
 though she had the more reason to complain. But 
 
88 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 anyway, it was better so. It was a critical moment 
 in our lives, and words might have led to the worst. 
 It is all too easy to imagine what might well have 
 happened, with a fretful comment from her to begin 
 with, a little quarrel swelling into a big quarrel, 
 reproaches bringing forth more reproaches, and 
 possibly blows, though I shudder to think myself 
 capable of that, and at last drink and ruin complete. 
 When an Irishman goes to the devil, he is pretty apt 
 to make the through trip at once, without any stops. 
 I slept not one wink all night. I was tired 
 enough, but my mind was in such a tumult of 
 mialignity as no bodily weariness could overcome. 
 At times, I think, I was nearly mad, and I almost 
 hope I was, mad enough, at least, to release me from 
 responsibility for the bad thoughts I entertained. 
 Only if you are at once sensitive and sanguine, and 
 both in high degree, can you know how I suffered. 
 And the worst of it was that I could conceive of 
 no balm for my suffering excepting only vengeance. 
 I reveled in hate, if the uttermost of bitterness has 
 anything of revelry in it, and while I devised hateful 
 deeds and figured myself doing them, I could cry 
 aloud in a species of hideous joy. Need I say that 
 I am heartily ashamed, a thousand times heartily 
 ashamed, of the desperate intentions of that night? 
 And yet I am not surprised that I had them. I tell 
 you disappointment is a terrible scourge, where a 
 man has any spirit. Let his desires and his expecta- 
 tions be however unreasonable, if they are denied, 
 he smarts as under the lick of a lash, and the wonder 
 to me is that more mischief is not done in the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 89 
 
 gratification of his blind, foolish resentment. Few 
 of us are philosophers, and fewer are saints. 
 Remembering that night, I can understand how men 
 g^t to be red anarchists. 
 
 I made up my mind to nothing, however, for my 
 mind was in no condition for making up. It was 
 chaos, black as night, with now and then the baleful 
 lightning of a bad intent flashing out over it, only to 
 fade away almost instantly, leaving no trace. 
 When morning came, I was conscious of no purpose, 
 yet a purpose I had, or else I should have drifted 
 along under the impulse of old habit. I did not go 
 to work, and I knew not in the least why. I dressed 
 myself in my good clothes ( we called them good, by 
 courtesy, for they were not deserving of the name, 
 what with being frayed and faded, and as for a 
 starched shirt, I had long since given up wearing 
 anything of that sort) and went off toward the city, 
 and still I knew not why. I must have gone pretty 
 straight to the general offices, because I soon fetched 
 up at the door thereof, and with that I was startled 
 a little out of my dream (I know not what else to call 
 it) and I asked myself what I had come for, and I 
 knew not. 
 
 I was not raging any more. Possibly the 
 imaginary vengeance of the night had glutted me. 
 I cannot undertake to say, further than that I was 
 become most amazingly stupid, as if my mental 
 equipment was quite run down. As in a trance I 
 faced about and left the general offices, and walked 
 the streets, up and down, hither and yon, for hours, 
 miles out and miles back, now loitering and now all 
 
90 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 but breaking into a run, as my mood shifted, try- 
 ing to devise, and making out nothing. I seemed 
 to be aware, through it all, that I had nothing to 
 gain by presenting myself at the president's door. 
 And yet I found myself back under the great arch 
 of the main entrance to the general offices, again, 
 and yet again, half a dozen times, it might be, in 
 the course of the forenoon. But always, there, 
 something held me back, pride, or prudence, work- 
 ing unconsciously, and I did not go in. 
 
 It was a day never to be forgotten, not only by 
 reason of its significance in my life (I count it at 
 once the darkest and the brightest of all my days, 
 darkest in its beginning and brightest in its ending) 
 but as well by reason of its own proper character, 
 the sweetness and the unspeakable beauty of it. 
 The poet says it is June, if ever, that there come 
 perfect days. I cannot agree with him. Lovely 
 days we get in all seasons, but the loveliest of all, to 
 my notion, is in winter. It is when the air, by 
 some mysterious dispensation, holds at the same 
 time the softness of summer and the frosty tang of 
 the winter. The sun shines, then, as he never 
 shines in any other season, with a subdued bright- 
 ness which diffuses a warmth of spirit, and the sky 
 has a blue which is tenderness itself, while under 
 your feet is spread a rich carpet of soft snow, a 
 benediction in itself. No man loves more ardently 
 than I the verdure of the growing months, and the 
 birds and the blossoms, but I think a mild, bright 
 day in December is the best of all, as it is the rarest. 
 And such a day was this, superlatively such. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 91 
 
 After tramping over half the town, I suppose, in 
 the manner I have described, I came up to the en- 
 trance of the general offices, once more, and the 
 great bell in the City Hall a block away was slowly 
 booming out the hour of 12. I counted the strokes, 
 and felt some surprise, yet I did not know whether 
 I was surprised because it was no earlier, or because 
 it was no later. I distinctly recall wondering about 
 that point, in a dazed, uncertain way, and then, all 
 of a mighty sudden, the time and the bell and pretty 
 much everything else dropped away from me. I 
 descried the figure of a man standing in the doorway 
 before me, and the sight of him made my heart 
 stop beating. For he was none other than Jones 
 Baring himself, alone, unoccupied, seemingly, paus- 
 ing there, no doubt, for a moment of refreshing 
 idleness, while he took in the beauties of the day, 
 the soft air, the bright sky, and the quiet and peace 
 brooding over all. 
 
 If I have given you any notion of the state of 
 mind I had fallen into, you will readily believe that 
 this conjuncture was almost too much for me. I 
 was that wound up with defeat, and the thought of 
 it, that this reverse shock, as I may call it, threw me 
 mto a great flutter, and I had something to do to 
 keep from bursting out like a hysterical woman, 
 laughing and crying all at once. And although I 
 made out not to sink so far below the level of man- 
 hood, it is a fact that my knees smote together and 
 all but gave way under me, and there came a dryness 
 back in my mouth which left me as dumb as a 
 stock. Just the other day Elizabeth was reading to 
 
92 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 me a story out of her Latin book, about a certain 
 
 Aeneas, who met with marvelous experiences, and 
 she came upon a passage which greatly caught my 
 fancy, recounting how, on the occasion of encounter- 
 ing the ghost of his father, the fellow's ** hair stood 
 up and his voice stuck in his throat/' It hit off 
 most aptly my own fix that lovely day long ago when 
 I came suddenly upon Jones Baring put in my way as 
 by the hand of Providence, and I was that struck I 
 forthwith conceived a warmer feeling for the Latin, 
 as affording the turn of such a neat phrase, although 
 I am none the less of the opinion that he who has 
 one language in which he can think clear thoughts 
 and speak them clearly out, is well furnished, with- 
 out taking trouble to learn another. 
 
 But a man will not long remain in such a plight. 
 He will get worse or better, and that soon. I got 
 better, praise the Lord. In the smallest fraction of 
 a second I had brought myself to a realization of 
 my glorious good fortune, and of the need I was 
 under, if I was to make the best of it, to be all that 
 it was in me to be. It was the fateful moment. 
 To quote the greatest of all great poets (I have 
 authority for this) although his sentiment applies to 
 a case far worse, I trust, than mine may ever be, 
 I had now to " awake, arise, or be forever fallen." 
 With a great effort, I awoke, and arose. 
 
 I had long since made up my mind just how I 
 should address the Old Man, if ever I got speech 
 with him, not merely the substance of it, but the 
 words as well, down to the minutest detail, and 
 I had it conned over until it was ready to flow off 
 
A Lord of Lands 93 
 
 my tongue without much need of my thinking what 
 I was saying. For one single, black instant I lost 
 it, and could no more have spoken it than I could 
 have repeated the Thirty-Nine Articles, or the 
 Longer Westminster Confession, and then it came 
 back to me, and I went straight up to him (I be- 
 lieve I had not halted at all, for all the arresting 
 thoughts which had passed through my brain) with 
 a boldness and a steadiness nothing short of astound- 
 ing, but not to be set down to my credit, for if ever 
 a man was sustained from on high, I was that man, 
 in that moment, — went straight up to him, never 
 stopping to pass the time of day, or to offer the 
 compliments of the season, or to waste the thinnest 
 shred of time on anything but the subject nearest 
 my heart, and asked him could I speak fifty-two 
 words to him. " Mr. Baring,'' said I, '' may I speak 
 fifty-two words to you? " 
 
 He turned the light of his countenance, in a way 
 of speaking, full upon me, and he looked a different 
 man, now that I stood so near him, and saw him 
 so fairly, or perhaps it was the circumstance of his 
 being brought out of a reverie that made the differ- 
 ence. Anyway, it was a face to make one feel a 
 sense of awe, and I assure you I felt it, to the full, 
 though I am called very democratic, and committed 
 to the doctrine that one man is as good as another. 
 What impressed me most was the depth of him. I 
 seemed to myself to have called down into a gulf 
 which was miles deep, with the mind I was trying to 
 reach at the very bottom, a lonely, hermit mind, 
 dwelling apart by reason of the greatness of it, such 
 
94 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 that it found no fit companion short of infinity. 
 There was something tremendously disconcerting 
 about it, and my courage, at a fierce pitch a moment 
 ago, began to ooze away in spite of me. A wild and 
 desperate dread of forgetting what I was to say next, 
 of proving unable to speak the fifty-two words, 
 though I should get permission, came over me, and 
 with it a strong impulse to take to my heels and run 
 away. It was borne in on me that I should never get 
 my breath rightly until I had fled that awesome pres- 
 ence. But I stood my ground, praise the Lord once 
 more. There's a way of saying, when a man wins, 
 that he carries the day, but now it was the day which 
 carried me, I believe, with the rare beauty of it, and 
 its softening influence. The blessed air bore my 
 weak and faltering voice down into those depths, and 
 in a moment I saw the answering light in the shaggy 
 eyes, while the rugged face relaxed into a faint smile, 
 and then the great man spoke. 
 
 " Sir," said he, in a pleasant voice, *' you may.'* 
 
 His graciousness put me right on my feet, as 
 it were, and thrilled me with an alertness to fan up 
 the spark of interest he showed. 
 
 " Myself and fifteen other men," said I, " all of 
 us with great and growing families, finding our- 
 selves barely able to keep afloat by dint of the most 
 unremitting effort, and having it to think of that our 
 increasing burdens must sink us sooner or later, 
 wish to go out and attach ourselves to the soil. 
 Would you care to have me lay our plan before 
 you?" 
 
 It was a set speech, of course. If it sounded, to 
 
A Lord of Lands. 95 
 
 the practised ear of Jones Baring, like a variation 
 of the old song of beggary, I cannot wonder. At 
 all events, his face took on a certain hardness, as I 
 spoke, or, to call it more fitly, a weariness. 
 
 '* What interest have I in your plan ? " he said, 
 rather coldly. 
 
 '' As to that, sir," said I, '* may I ask you to read 
 this," and I handed him my newspaper clipping. 
 
 He took it, not at all eagerly, and glanced 
 through it, and something, possibly the name of the 
 Canadian Pacific, standing out with capitals, caught 
 him, and he went back and read it over a second 
 time, less hastily, and a third time, very carefully. 
 Then he handed it back to me, without a word, but 
 he looked at me curiously. 
 
 " It seems the railways are anxious to fill up their 
 lands with respectable settlers," said I. 
 
 I doubt if he heard this. He was eyeing me 
 narrowly, and I began to feel like a bit of punk 
 under a sunglass, on the point of flaring up and 
 vanishing in a puff of unavailing flame and smoke. 
 It was very embarrassing, I assure you. 
 
 " What is your name? " he said, at length, 
 
 " Matthew Fitzgerald," said I. 
 
 ** I have seen you before," said he. 
 
 " I have the honor," said I, " to be employed in 
 your service, as a switchman." 
 
 To be sure it was an honor, but I saw at once, 
 by the look of him, that he was not pleased with 
 my bald manner of acknowledgement. There was 
 a smack of servility about it, and it offended him, 
 but he went on with me. 
 
96 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 "An Irishman?" said he. 
 
 " The north of Ireland," said I, with a touch of 
 the fooHsh hereditary pride. " I was born in the 
 country Antrim, and my parents before me." 
 
 Of course he had not asked me what county, or 
 anything about my parents, but simply if I was an 
 Irishman, and here I was, in the very face of the 
 warning I had received but a moment before, 
 answering him with all this flow of loquacity. I 
 could see that the shade in his face was deepening, 
 and I could have kicked myself with a good heart. 
 
 " The trouble with sending city people out to 
 become farmers," he said, turning partly away, and 
 looking off down the street, and speaking in a 
 manner which was not cordial, " is that they get 
 homesick and give up, drift back, if they can, and 
 if they can't, sink into shiftlessness. We have got 
 to fill our lands with peasants from Europe, who 
 have known real poverty, and are willing to endure 
 anything for the sake of having enough to eat. 
 Your city people haven't the stamina to live in the 
 wilderness. They can't exist except in a crowd. 
 They will choose to deprive themselves of everything 
 rather than company. That seems to be human 
 nature. It is useless to fight against human nature." 
 
 I confess that I had not thought of any superiority 
 those British immigrants might have over us, 
 through being more highly seasoned veterans in the 
 war against poverty, and by that fitter to cope with 
 the hardships of pioneering, and the effect of being 
 admonished of it, now, together with the growing 
 feeling that I was not making the best impression 
 
A Lord of Lands. 97 
 
 personally, was not uplifting. I wondered if I 
 might not venture to remind him that his point of 
 view perhaps shut him off from seeing the whole 
 field, and then I wondered if I dared open my lips, 
 and the upshot was that I made no reply, and in a 
 moment, when he had finished speaking, it was my 
 great satisfaction to have him turn back to me, with 
 a kindly look, as if his bitterness, for such it seemed 
 to be, had spent itself in his speech, and the warmer 
 sentiments were coming up to the surface. 
 
 " I should take you for an honest man," he said. 
 
 " I hope I am that," I repHed, " and I hope, as 
 I believe, that my friends are equally honest. What 
 is more, if I may say so, we ask no favor. As we 
 are honest men, we wish to pay for all we get. We 
 have no desire to come by anything unless by value 
 rendered." 
 
 All in all, it was a curious conversation, on my 
 part, at least, what with the violent fluctuations I 
 was undergoing, It seemed as if I was raised up 
 only in order to be brought down again, for now 
 he understood me to be boasting and turned cold 
 once more. 
 
 ** That's all very easy to say," he said. 
 
 I was like a man who climbs a steep declivity with 
 great labor, to find himself slipping back, bruised 
 and worn, as often as he gains any height. I was 
 seized with a desperate hardihood. It was borne in 
 on me that the Old Man was minded to go his 
 way and trouble himself no further with my busi- 
 ness, and with that I resolved that he should not, if 
 7 
 
98 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 there was any means, barring violence, of holding 
 him until he had heard me out. 
 
 " Permit me to say, sir," said I, forgetting my- 
 self in my new determination, and along with my- 
 self the formal discourse which I had framed, and 
 the vain affectations, '' that we have not overlooked 
 the difficulty you mention, namely, the liking of 
 city people for company, by reason of which they 
 endure farm life but hardly. Our plan takes care 
 of that difficulty." 
 
 " You claim great merit for your plan," he said. 
 " Do you profess to be able to make human nature 
 over?" 
 
 There was palpable irony in this, and I was very 
 conscious of a flash of resentment. Will you think 
 of me talking to the great Jones Baring face to face 
 and getting a bit angry with him? But, as I say, 
 I had forgotten myself. Besides, he tapped me right 
 where I was fullest. Upon the instant, I was gush- 
 ing aboundingly. 
 
 ** Not at all, sir," said I. " It is not necessary 
 to make human nature over, if I understand it. We 
 propose to take human nature as it is. We pro- 
 pose to be farmers and yet have plenty of good 
 company. I would not wish to deprive myself of 
 the delights of company, and, more than myself, 
 I would not deprive my family. The women, sir, 
 have to have company much as the flowers have to 
 have sunlight. They can live without it, but not 
 thriftily. We must have company, and the especial 
 merit we claim for our plan is that it looks first of 
 all to the purpose of providing company." 
 
A Lord of Lands. gg 
 
 This burst of eloquence affected the Old Man, I 
 should judge, with a certain astonishment, for he 
 listened as if he might be puzzling what the meaning 
 of it should be, whether he had a person of sound 
 faculties to deal with, or a lunatic under a delusion. 
 But whatever his thought was, it came out in my 
 favor at last, as I could see by his face, which be- 
 trayed more and more interest as I went on. You 
 are to understand that I had not paused, in the 
 least, but rattled away, determined to have out all 
 that was in me, whether or no, until I had told him, 
 with all too little regard for the brevity which is the 
 soul of wit, how it was our intention to build us a 
 little village in the midst of our land, where we 
 should live together, sixteen families of us, or eighty 
 souls, now, with more in prospect, since we were all 
 youngish yet. 
 
 When I was done, at length, there was a little 
 silence, while I stood, somewhat out of breath, and 
 a good deal abashed by my own boldness, and anx- 
 ious as to what was coming of it, and waited for him 
 to speak. 
 
 " Did you evolve that idea out of your inner 
 consciousness? " said he, and his tone was decidedly 
 different from any he had yet employed with me, 
 and as encouraging as it was different. 
 
 Precisely what he meant by this, I did not know at 
 the time, but I was well satisfied that he did not refer 
 to the Chinese, and so I answered him in the 
 negative. 
 
 "I have read," said I, "that the farmers of 
 
100 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 China live together in villages, some such way, and 
 are none the worse farmers for it." 
 
 " Can any good come out of Nazareth? " said the 
 Old Man, and laughed outright, and I assure you a 
 glint of merriment improved his looks immensely. 
 Right away I began to feel as if I had known him 
 all my life. But my embarrassments were not over 
 with, for now there took place an incident which I 
 deem one of the strangest, if not the very strangest, 
 in all my experience, an incident which I recount to 
 my children as the ancient mariner recounts to 
 his the marvels which have befallen him in his out- 
 landish travels, and shall soon, if I am spared, 
 recount to my grandchildren, who are fast coming to 
 the age when family history will appeal to them, 
 and it may be to my great-grandchildren, likewise, 
 for I need live only a matter of a dozen or fifteen 
 years longer in order to have these, Deo volente, in 
 the female line, if not in the male. When the Old 
 Man had had his laugh, and before I could think 
 of any suitable comment to go on with, being that 
 fluttered by his kindness, he suddenly turned upon 
 me with this most astounding and disconcerting 
 question : 
 
 '* By the way, have you lunched, Mr. Fitz- 
 gerald?" 
 
 Consider it. By the way, have you lunched, Mr. 
 Fitzgerald? It was near overmastering me, but I 
 managed to keep my slender wits sufficiently about 
 me to answer that I had not, which was quite the 
 truth, in a much larger sense than he was likely to 
 understand. To the best of my knowledge, I had 
 
A Lord of Lands. loi 
 
 never lunched in all my life, although I had eaten my 
 full share, no doubt, since my meals had always 
 passed under the humbler names of breakfast, dinner 
 and supper. I dimly foreboded what was at hand, 
 and had thus a little time to get ready for it, to 
 brace myself, as it were, and yet I was all but for 
 sinking down when he asked me would I be pleased 
 to lunch with him. 
 
 Once more my hair stood on end and my voice 
 stuck in my throat. Down in the uttermost recesses 
 of my heart, the spirit of adventure, which Ireland 
 breathes copiously into every son of hers, to her own 
 glory, perhaps, but to his everlasting discomfort, 
 was pushing me on to seize upon the opportunity, 
 and make the most of it, but my fears took a 
 contrary stand, and to tell the truth, I was frightened 
 about out of my senses. Could I have come up to 
 the business gradually, I daresay I might have 
 carried it off with some assurance and the outward 
 show, at least, of ease, but with the emergency 
 springing at me like Jack out of the box, I felt 
 vastly more like running than staying. I cast about 
 desperately for a pretext, and thought myself fortu- 
 nate in having it to say that I was not fitly dressed. 
 But the Old Man would not hear me. 
 
 "Nonsense, sir!" said he, and with that what 
 does he do but take me by the arm, and the next I 
 knew I was going along with him, under a strong 
 sense of unreality. I seriously asked myself if I 
 was dreaming. I have since learned that where one 
 wonders if he is dreaming, he may rest assured he 
 is not, for the reason that to the mind in sleep all its 
 
I02 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 fantasies seem real, but of this I had no inkling at 
 that time, and I was not a little disturbed by the 
 doubt, and quite prepared to find myself starting 
 out of my sleep and to hear Ludovika asking me 
 what had I eaten that should make me so restless. 
 The Old Man chatted as we went, in a way which 
 impressed me as being very cultivated and agreeable, 
 about the beautiful day, and the unusually mild 
 season, and the great prevalence of colds, which he 
 attributed to people allowing themselves to be 
 beguiled into exposures by the warm weather, and 
 in due time brought me to his club, where, if report 
 was to be credited, only the first people entered, 
 and where no switchman, I am convinced, not even 
 Michael O' Fallon, the walking delegate, had ever 
 entered before, anyway by the front door, as I 
 entered that day, with swimming head and quaking 
 knees, out of consciousness of my unfitness, and of 
 the likelihood that I should fall into some grievous 
 error of conduct. But for all the strangeness of 
 my being there, dressed as I was, which should be 
 for a sign to anybody that I was out of my element, 
 I have it to testify that I caught nobody staring at 
 me, or indicating by as much as the quiver of an 
 eyelash that he was surprised to see me there, and 
 this I took for a mark of fine breeding, and a proof 
 of the considerateness which is the beginning of all 
 politeness. I could fill two and possibly three large 
 books and tell no more than I saw at the club, for 
 nothing escaped me, I believe, though I was care- 
 ful, too, taking the cue from the others, to refrain 
 from staring on my own part, and, what with 
 
A Lord of Lands. 103 
 
 frequent rehearsals during the years that have 
 
 intervened (even Ludovika, who has heard my 
 
 stories oftenest and is not, at best, a distinguished 
 
 Hstener, nevertheless dehghts to this day to hear me 
 
 recount this part, finding therein some gratification 
 
 of her womanly vanity, I surmise, and a feeling of 
 
 sharing in my honors) it is all fresh in my mind. 
 
 But I will mention here only the rich silence, which 
 
 struck me most of all. Although there were many 
 
 sitting at the tables in the great dining-room, and 
 
 eating, there was no clatter of dishes, and no loud 
 
 bawling of voices, such as you hear where numbers 
 
 of the uncultivated are feeding, but only the soft 
 
 murmur of polite conversation, with the waiters 
 
 gliding about as quietly as shadows, quickly enough, 
 
 but without once seeming to hurry. I know no 
 
 reason why the wealthy should be by that more 
 
 mannerly, unless it is that their wealth fosters in 
 
 them a self-respect, but so they seem to be, at all 
 
 events among themselves. 
 
 When the black man brought the card with the 
 menu printed on it, and laid it down on the table 
 under my nose (it was one small circumstance 
 in my favor that I had encountered the word 
 menu, and knew sufficiently well what it meant) 
 I was given new cause for alarm, for not one 
 title could I make anything out of, though I 
 searched the card as narrowly as I might in the 
 short time I had for it, in the hope of coming 
 upon something I could fathom. It was French, 
 I presume, but it might have been Sanscrit, for all 
 the meaning it conveyed to me. For one wild 
 
I04 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 instant I thought of ordering two or three things 
 at random, and trust to luck for the rest, and 
 then I asked myself, what if they should turn out to 
 be dishes which I knew not how to go about eating? 
 And what were all those forks for, beside my plate, 
 to the number of half a dozen, I should say, although 
 to my distracted senses they may well have appeared 
 more numerous than they were, and what did they 
 portend but more pitfalls for my feet, should I 
 make bold to invade this unknown ground ? I was 
 pretty much sweating blood, as the phrase is, and 
 none the easier was I made upon observing, as I 
 could, without looking up, that Jones Baring was 
 watching me, no doubt with an interest in seeing 
 how I would bear myself. But with the pattern of 
 leisureliness which my betters were setting all about 
 me, I felt that I had not to hurry, at least, and so 
 I suffered a considerable interval to elapse before 
 taking any action whatever, and in that interval I 
 had the good fortune, for I can claim but small 
 credit for my good sense, to reflect that if I tried 
 to be myself I was less likely to make a mess of it 
 than if I tried to be what I was not, and besides, 
 even supposing I should manage to appear more 
 cultivated and mannerly than I was, what was I 
 to gain thereby? It was not my manners which I 
 had to prove in Jones Baring*s eyes, but my good 
 faith. Accordingly I laid the card quietly down and 
 said to the waiter: 
 
 " This is all quite strange to me. I am not at 
 all hungry, but if I must eat, will you be so kind as 
 to bring me a plain dinner for a working man ? " 
 
A Lord of Lands. 105 
 
 The Old Man was pleased, if his laughter meant 
 anything, for it was hearty, and in all respects good 
 to hear, with no intimation of ridicule in it I 
 caught the note of cordial approval, and my 
 embarrassment was altogether removed, and indeed 
 in my elation I had something to do to keep myself 
 from being carried into an excess of jocularity. But 
 I made out to bear in mind that I had not, even now 
 made so good an impression that I could not spoil 
 It, and restrained my forwardness. 
 
 " That's just the kind of dinner I order for my- 
 self," said the Old Man, when he had had his laugh 
 and then he added, to the darkey: '' Pinckney, will 
 you duplicate my regular lunch for Mr Fitz- 
 gerald ? " 
 
 The lunch was a long time coming (I believe it 
 IS the character of eating-places that the higher they 
 rise in the scale of gentility, the longer they keep 
 you waiting, the philosophy of this being, I should 
 guess, that patience is the quality of good breeding 
 and by that the long delay will discourage the patron- 
 age of the ill-bred) and after it was come we were 
 a long time eating it, as I thought. The Old Man 
 went about the business very deliberately, when you 
 reflect how valuable his time was, with considerable 
 pauses between the mouthfuls, as if he would wait 
 for each to arrive quite at its destination before 
 starting another off, and I felt bound to bear him 
 company, although it would have been my way to 
 dispatch the matter, as is the fashion of working- 
 men, whose appetites, not to speak of exterior neces- 
 sity, seldom permit them to dawdle over their 
 
io6 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 victuals. With all my boorishness and crass ignor- 
 ance of the proprieties, an instinct told me it would 
 not become me to go racing ahead, as it were, and 
 then sit idly with the air of waiting for my host to 
 catch up, and I strove to moderate my speed accord- 
 ingly. In the meanwhile, the Old Man had directed 
 the conversation back to its original channel, and 
 was plying me throughout with questions of a 
 searching nature, to answer which with scantiest 
 justice kept me so busy that I was saved from all 
 danger of saying too much, a circumstance in no 
 small measure fortunate, I assure you. He drew me 
 pretty dry, as to the details of our project, and to 
 my unspeakable comfort, almost every new disclo- 
 sure seemed to please him. I say almost, for now 
 and then the shade flitted over his face, to startle 
 me, but it always passed, and on the whole it was 
 plain that his approval was being won. What 
 brought him, at length, to something nearly 
 approaching enthusiasm, and I was not greatly 
 surprised, either, knowing something of the views 
 common to moneyed men, was our purpose to 
 hold no land in common. 
 
 " I'm glad," he said, almost radiantly, " that 
 you've got none of this socialistic nonsense about 
 you. Socialism is a great humbug, although such 
 a man as I am wastes his breath telling people so. 
 They've got to follow it to their destruction, before 
 they will believe the truth about it. Any policy 
 is a humbug which proposes to do away with 
 individual initiative. We owe everything to in- 
 dividual initiative, not only wealth and the material 
 
A Lord of Lands. 107 
 
 things, but character in its highest manifestations. 
 No perfection of communal relations, no activity on 
 the part of the state, however honest and faithful, 
 will ever take the place of individual initiative." 
 
 It was not my place to dispute him. I might, 
 perhaps, since I had been for years a constant 
 attendant upon the sessions of the Trades Council, 
 where I sat as a delegate from our Union, and had 
 heard there no end of talk from those earnest men 
 whose faces, to use their own words, were turned 
 toward the dawn. Nor will I deny that my 
 sympathies, and prejudices, were of a nature to 
 commit me to the poor man's view rather than the 
 rich man's, but for all that, I did not deem myself 
 called upon to fly at Jones Baring's throat, meta- 
 phorically speaking. 
 
 ** No doubt," said I, very respectfully, and then, 
 to my considerable relief, he changed the subject. 
 
 Elizabeth, with a truly feminine feeling for the 
 small things of life, wishes me to incorporate some 
 description, even though but a brief one, of the 
 various dishes of which we partook, and, when i 
 question the wisdom of this, urging upon her the 
 need to uphold the dignity of the narrative, that 
 it may have the greater credit with future ages, 
 she points out that in the literary remains of ancient 
 times by no means the least esteemed passages are 
 those which tell us what those distant peoples had 
 to eat, and so I will say this much, that there was 
 a beefsteak which surpassed anything I have ever 
 met with, of the sort. The general character of 
 beefsteak, as I have learned it by long experience, 
 
io8 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 is a stout resistance to the teeth, but this specimen 
 all but melted in the mouth, it was that yielding. I 
 am inclined to attribute its excellence to some knack 
 in the broiling, but Ludovika, who has never been 
 able, try as she would, to produce the like of it, 
 avers that the meat had been kept until the process 
 of natural decay had induced a great tenderness, 
 adding, with what authority I know not, that it is 
 the practice of the luxurious to eat flesh which com- 
 mon folks would pronounce rotten. Be that as it 
 may, I can testify that the steak tasted most wonder- 
 fully good, although I ate but little of it, after all, 
 only two helpings, as I remember, with each helping 
 illustrating, in the quantity of it, the moderation 
 which was the spirit of the place. There are times 
 in the life of even the heartiest man when his heart 
 swells to such proportions that it seems to occupy 
 pretty much his whole interior, leaving no room for 
 the stomach to do its accustomed duty in. 
 
 When we had lunched, or, rather, in my own case 
 at least, gone through with the motions, the Old 
 Man would have me go back to the office with him, 
 declaring that he had much yet to speak of, and now 
 again I had to ask myself if I was awake, or only 
 dreaming after all. Was it to be believed, was 
 it possible, that the great Jones Baring, the man of 
 many millions, the master mind of vast enterprises, 
 was taken with our little affair to such a degree as 
 this, that he was giving up to it the very heart of 
 his precious day? I have only the vaguest notion 
 of high finance, such as the newspapers give us, but 
 I have no doubt that wonders are wrought by it. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 109 
 
 and if I were to be told that Jones Baring could 
 amass a hundred thousand dollars in the space of 
 two good hours such as he gave to me that day, I 
 should not scruple to believe it. It was written in 
 my first copy-book that time is money, and while I 
 was not able, in those early years, to penetrate to 
 the inwardness of the maxim, nevertheless, it stuck 
 in my mind, with the iteration, and now, as I recall 
 it, I can see how very true it is, especially for those 
 who have the foresight to see their chance afar, and 
 the deftness to catch it as it passes. 
 
 I have no wish to make myself out more than 
 human, and so I will freely confess that I held my 
 head pretty high when the Old Man led me in past 
 the outer guard and the inner guard and the grand 
 eunuch, chatting the while with a familiar air which 
 was wholly devoid of condescension. The outer 
 guard, who undoubtedly fancied himself cleverly 
 rid of me, appeared, as I thought, to experience a 
 difficulty with his breathing at the sight, as if he 
 questioned the testimony of his senses. The inner 
 guard, being older at his trade, was naturally more 
 self-contained, though I am convinced he had his 
 thoughts. But the grand eunuch was as unmoved 
 as a graven image. For him I had a sort of pity, 
 now, thinking of the hardship of his position, by 
 which he was to efface and deny and trample down 
 all the impulses of human likes and disHkes, 
 wherein a man finds about the most of his sat- 
 isfaction, until he was become something in the 
 nature of a mere appliance, like the radiator, or the 
 roller of the shade. I was sorry for the grand 
 
1 1 o A Lord of Lands. 
 
 eunuch, I say, whereas, in the beginning, I had the 
 will to lay hands of violence upon him. I fancy that 
 every place of power has after all its pitiful aspect, 
 though few ever get to see it. 
 
 In the inmost office, which proved to be a simple, 
 almost a bare room, with none of the adornment I 
 expected to see, the Old Man had me sit down in a 
 big, old-fashioned rocking-chair, while he asked me 
 more questions, although it had long seemed to me 
 there were no more to ask. And now he pried most 
 particularly, with a minuteness which struck me then 
 as being all but trivial, although I now see in it 
 his superior sense of proportion, by which he more 
 correctly discriminated the important from the 
 unimportant, — he pried particularly, I repeat, into 
 the nationality of the men who were to make up our 
 colony. He launched into this line of inquiry 
 bluntly, by asking me if there were any Norwegians 
 among us. I could only reply that there were four 
 families whom I took, from their names, and their 
 look, and their manner of speaking English, to be 
 Scandinavians, and for aught I knew to the contrary, 
 they might be Norwegians. It did not seem to me 
 to matter much, one way or the other, but the Old 
 Man would not have it so. 
 
 " Norwegians," said he, " are the best equipped 
 people in the world for our kind of pioneering. No- 
 body knows so well as a Norwegian how to cope 
 with the hardships of a new country, how to conquer 
 those which are conquerable, and how to endure 
 those which are not. People who know how to be 
 
A Lord of Lands. 1 1 1 
 
 poor are fully as valuable as people who know how 
 to get rich." 
 
 This was a new point, to me, and before I could 
 think of aught to say, he left it, and asked me about 
 Germans. 
 
 " We have five families of Germans," I said, and 
 now I was made uneasy afresh, not having bethought 
 myself, hitherto, what a markedly foreign lot we 
 were, in respect of our descent. But the Old Man 
 seemed pleased enough. 
 
 " Germans are all right," said he, cordially. 
 " What should we ever do without them ? More 
 than a million of them have found homes among us, 
 and I wonder if we rightly appreciate what that 
 means. Too many of us think only of what the 
 country has done for these immigrants, forgetting 
 the great things the immigrants have done for the 
 country." 
 
 He looked very serious while he said this, but in 
 a moment his face softened into a smile, and he 
 went on, about the Germans, more in a whimsical 
 vein, as I thought. 
 
 " Do you know, Fitzgerald," said he, " that an 
 Irish husband and a German wife make the best 
 cross in the world? It is a fact. The children of 
 such a marriage are almost sure to turn out well. 
 The Irish blood gives them snap, and the German 
 blood gives them poise. If I were a king, I should 
 wish my people to be of mixed blood, Irish and 
 German, and I shouldn't mind if there was a dash of 
 the Scotch thrown in, though that doesn't so much 
 matter. No thoroughbreds for me, if you please. 
 
112 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 The king of such people would have to mind his 
 p's and q's, but if he did his duty, he could rest easy, 
 for all the crown on his head." 
 
 He laughed here, but less by w^ay of applauding 
 his own humor, doubtless, than to make it very clear 
 he was only joking when he spoke of being a king, 
 for it was not seldom flung out at him, especially by 
 hostile newspapers, that he already had more than 
 regal power, and used it too often in a truly regal 
 way, that is, to oppress somebody. It came upon 
 me, in view of his levity, especially, to say that my 
 own children had a German mother, and because I 
 did not I have never ceased to be upbraided by 
 Ludovika, but I am well assured I did right to 
 refrain. A very slight admixture of vainglory on 
 my part might have had a chilling effect upon the 
 spirits of our great and good friend, although it 
 was no consideration of prudence which kept me 
 from speaking, but rather an uncertainty as to 
 w^hether he was not ironical in his praise of mixed 
 races, as compared with those of pure lineage. 
 Moreover, I had no great chance, for at once he was 
 done laughing, the Old Man asked me, soberly, if 
 there were no Americans in the party. 
 
 In this I misapprehended him w^holly. The fear 
 which had hastily taken form in my mind, lest he 
 consider it a drawback, our being so many of us 
 foreigners, laid rather a strong hold on me, now, 
 what with the earnest look he gave me, from under 
 his heavy brows, and I made as much as I could of 
 there being several Americans among us, one of 
 whom, I knew, was able to trace his ancestry back to 
 
A Lord of Lands. 113 
 
 the original settlers in a part of Massachusetts, a 
 matter of two hundred years, or so. I exhibited the 
 fact as impressively as my narrow powers and still 
 narrower information permitted, and I had the 
 satisfaction of observing that Jones Baring was 
 thinking over it. 
 
 ** A poor man? " he said, at length. 
 
 " He is," said I, *' a very poor man, indeed. He 
 has five in his family, and some weeks he earns no 
 more than seven dollars." 
 
 Still the Old Man was thinking, but now I could 
 not help but see that the hard lines, which had been 
 pretty much smoothed out, with all his laughter and 
 genial comment, were coming back a little. 
 
 *' It's nothing against a man that he is poor," he 
 said, after quite a pause, and speaking slowly. '' In- 
 deed, if he is to be a good pioneer it is necessary that 
 he be poor. Poverty provides the discontent with- 
 out which no man will get ahead. But there has 
 got to be something for the prod to stimulate. It 
 is nothing against a man that he is an American 
 able to trace his lineage back through eight or ten 
 generations of native stock. But a stock which has 
 lived upwards of two hundred years in this land 
 of magnificent opportunity, and peters out at last to 
 a man who earns only seven dollars a week, is not 
 good pioneering material. To be candid, it is good 
 for nothing, except to recruit the ranks of the poor 
 which we have always with us, the hopeless poor. I 
 have no wish to raise up obstacles, but I am free to 
 say, as between you and me, that this man won't 
 
114 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 make good. He hasn't the gumption, or he wouldn*t 
 be where he is." 
 
 In something less than a year's time, I had reason 
 to recall these words of Jones Baring's, and to think 
 better of them than I did when first I heard them. 
 For then, they shocked me, and pained me, and 
 forced me almost to revise the estimate I had of the 
 Old Man's goodness of heart. I thought of poor 
 Brown, and the pitiful, abject manner his servile 
 calling had got him into, and my heart fairly ached, 
 and I vowed, inwardly, that if it came to a choice 
 between giving up the project or leaving Brown out 
 of it, I, for one, would stand by him, though I 
 died for it. But it came to no such choice. Having 
 voiced his opinion, or prophecy, perhaps I should 
 call it, in view of all that happened after, the Old 
 Man never spoke of the matter again. There was a 
 silence betwixt us, lasting perhaps half a minute, 
 during which I was on the anxious seat, with won- 
 dering what next, and then he struck straight to the 
 heart of the business by asking me, plumply, what 
 we expected him to do about it. 
 
 Of course I knew this question, or something like 
 it, had to come, sooner or later, and indeed it was 
 the question which I had especially prepared my- 
 self to answer but for all that, now it was actually 
 asked me, I was fluttered by it, and hot and cold 
 flashes chased one another up and down my spine, 
 and there was a groping, within me, after the points. 
 But I made out to say my say, for better or for 
 worse, trying very hard not to think of the bald, set 
 
A Lord of Lands. 115 
 
 character of my discourse, and the unmitigated 
 audacity of my appeal. 
 
 " Briefly," said I, " we've no money. With our 
 growing families, none of us has been able to lay 
 by a penny for a rainy day. In order to carry out 
 these plans we have formed, we shall need about a 
 thousand dollars for each family, as we figure it, 
 and this we shall have to borrow. We, or, at least, 
 I have taken the liberty to hope that you may see 
 fit to advance us this money, or so much of it as we 
 may need to get started. But believe me, I have not 
 indulged this hope until I made myself tolerably sure 
 of our ability to repay you, and return the favor, 
 for we wish, above all else, to be beholden to no 
 man. The Canadian Pacific company, if I under- 
 stand their position, have no notion of giving any- 
 thing to their immigrants, but, on the contrary, 
 expect to get their money back and a good profit on 
 the investment. I know we are asking a great 
 thing, but no greater than we expect to pay for." 
 
 If Jones Baring had laughed in my face, I could 
 not have blamed him. For a moment, indeed, hav- 
 ing finished my speech, with the full meaning of it 
 bearing down upon me, I sat there wondering why 
 he did not laugh. What could be more visionary, 
 when you come to think of it, than my expectation 
 of winning the favor of a practical man of affairs? 
 Never had the utter absurdity of it appealed to me 
 as now, with the sound of my own voice ringing 
 hollowly in my ears, as if another person had been 
 speaking, and arguing nonsense. But the Old Man 
 was not that way affected. On the contrary, he 
 
1 1 6 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 fixed his eyes upon me, as attentively and respect- 
 fully as if I were some great luminary of the world 
 of enterprise unfolding a project of the first impor- 
 tance. When I was done, he asked some more 
 questions, touching the manner in which we pur- 
 posed handling the money if we got it, whether 
 through a single disbursing ofiicer or committee, or 
 every man for himself, and then he fell silent once 
 more, and I could see that he was calculating busily 
 in his mind. 
 
 " You want," he said, presently, " about sixteen 
 thousand dollars in all." 
 
 As it happened, I had never once thought of the 
 lump sum, what with figuring the bill for each 
 family separately, and the enormity of it made me a 
 trifle faint. Sixteen thousand dollars seemed a 
 much greater matter than anything I had conceived 
 of, though I know not why, since it is clear at a 
 glance that a thousand dollars for each of sixteen 
 families comes to nothing less ; a staggering matter, 
 indeed. But here by native impudence asserted it- 
 self, and for once in my life was perhaps of some 
 advantage to me, and I replied, with astounding 
 ease and coolness, that we felt convinced we should 
 make sixteen thousand dollars suffice. You will see 
 that I was getting out of the narrow w^ay of looking 
 at affairs, with a vengeance. 
 
 It was some little time, though not as long, 
 probably, as it seemed to me, hanging as I was upon 
 his lips, knowing that the last word, be it good or 
 bad, was at hand, until he spoke again. He leaned 
 far back in his chair, and rocked it gently upon its 
 
A Lord of Lands. 
 
 117 
 
 springs while he stared out of the window at the 
 streams of traffic pouring up and down the street 
 outside. I can see him now, as he looked. When- 
 ever I think of him, this is the picture which first 
 comes to my mind. 
 
 " Fitzgerald," he said, " do you wonder why I 
 am giving so much of my time to you and your 
 plan?" 
 
 " Frankly, sir, I do," said I. " I wonder very 
 much indeed. " 
 
 He wheeled about suddenly, and leaned over to- 
 ward me and laid his hand upon my knee, and looked 
 me straight in the eye. 
 
 " You have interested me," he said, *' both as a 
 capitalist, whose business is the breeding of money, 
 and as a philanthropist, whose business is the better- 
 ment of the human race, for, in spite of all they 
 say against me, I believe I have some title to the 
 latter character. It strikes me, as a capitalist and 
 as a philanthropist, that there may be the germ of 
 great things in this plan of yours. Anyway, I 
 have determined to put it to the trial." 
 
 Now when he had spoken these words, in his 
 straightforward, convincing manner, the manner of 
 a man whose heart was in his speech, I could have 
 shouted hosannah. I could have gone down on my 
 knees in thanksgiving, though for many years my 
 knees had been unused to such service, I say it with 
 regret, for I respect the religion which my parents 
 taught me, and in my sober moments much misdoubt 
 if I have not done very wrong to neglect it. I am 
 not a fawning person, either by right of race or 
 
1 1 8 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 individual temper, but in that instant I could have 
 prostrated myself at Jones Baring's feet and kissed 
 the hem of his garment, I was to that degree carried 
 away by my gratitude, and the rush of my emotions, 
 after all the carking anxiety and the hovering on 
 tired wings of hope, over the very abyss of despair. 
 And what did I do? Nothing, simply, but sit very 
 still in the big rocking-chair, and listen to him, 
 while he went on, with the most delightful discourse 
 I ever heard in all my hfe. 
 
 " I daresay," he said, " if I could offer to the 
 world a plan which promised, with any sort of 
 assurance, to get the poor people out of the cities 
 and make farmers of them, even the most indifferent 
 farmers, I could procure twenty million dollars in 
 twenty-four hours, given outright, gladly and with- 
 out condition, to put that plan into practice and 
 effect. 
 
 " So much for philanthropy. 
 
 " On the other hand, any plan by which the 
 people who crowd the cities to the point of suffoca- 
 tion, and barely exist there; who are, commercially 
 speaking, of little or no account, since they produce 
 relatively nothing and consume just as little as will 
 keep life in them, — any plan, I say, by which these 
 people should be induced to go out and settle on the 
 vacant lands of the West, to become generous pro- 
 ducers there, and generous consumers, would be 
 "worth more millions to the railroads than you could 
 easily count; and through the railroads to the 
 bankers and jobbers and manufacturers, since they 
 are all hung together and what helps one helps 
 
A Lord of Lands. 1 1 9 
 
 all; not only to us who are living now, but our 
 children and our children's children. For all these, 
 it were better, and by that I mean worth more 
 money, to have our prairies made into grainfields, 
 than to have a gold mine under every quarter 
 section. 
 
 " So much for business. 
 
 " There's no room for philanthropy where busi- 
 ness will answer the purpose, so we'll put 
 philanthropy aside and talk business. Your plan 
 is at least worth trying on. We spend many times 
 sixteen thousand dollars on experiments far less 
 promising, and think nothing of it, though we fail, 
 nor do we consider the money lost. It's all in the 
 day's wages, and if we don't experiment, we 
 stagnate. What you propose seems to me very 
 likely to do away, to a great extent, with the 
 loneliness of farm life, sufficiently so, perhaps, to 
 remove the most serious obstacle in the way of a 
 better distribution of the population, such as we 
 all wish for. You may go back to your friends and 
 tell them I am with you. You will not fail of the 
 outside help you need, and I have hopes, from what 
 you tell me, that you won't prove lacking in the 
 grit to help yourselves, which is after all the main 
 thing. I don't by any means propose to pay over 
 sixteen thousand dollars in cash to a group of 
 men who, however sensible they may be, are unused 
 to handling large sums of money. But I shall see 
 to it that you have your land and your other 
 material when you are ready for these things. As 
 soon as you make up your minds about where you 
 
120 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 wish to locate, come to me again, and I'll have our 
 land agents show you what we've got to offer in 
 the way of farms. We own some few odd millions 
 of acres, in six or seven different states, scattered 
 all the way along three thousand miles of track, 
 and I rather guess we can supply you with what 
 you want." 
 
 Then he stood up and held out his hand to me, 
 with his pleasantest look. 
 
 " I'm very much obliged to you," he said, " for 
 coming to me." 
 
 What could I answer? Never in my life was 
 I so completely at a loss. When I tell that I 
 spoke never a word, that I was dumb as an ox, in 
 spite of my native glibness, I will give you the best 
 notion, I think, of how deeply I was moved. The 
 Old Man went with me to the door, still holding 
 my hand, and bowed me out, all very respectfully, 
 and I daresay more cordially than if I were Commo- 
 dore Vanderbilt or Jay Gould and repeated that he 
 was very much obliged to me, and expressed the hope 
 of seeing me again soon. Pray do not understand me 
 to intimate that I had compelled this great man to 
 look up to me, by any extraordinary virtue of mine. 
 His courtesy was a tribute rather to the straight- 
 forward sincerity which I had been so fortunate 
 as to convince him of, and which was no especial 
 credit to me, since it lies with any man who has 
 the will. This final outburst of his kindliness took 
 place in the presence of the grand eunuch, and I 
 have it to record that this singular personage never- 
 theless preserved his amazing calm throughout. In 
 
A Lord of Lands. 121 
 
 my time I had been angry with the grand eunuch, 
 and again I had felt a pity for him, and now I was 
 moved to a degree of admiration, sitting unmoved 
 where another man would all but fall dead of 
 astonishment. 
 
 I flew home with winged feet, so to say, and 
 breathlessly informed Ludovika of the wonderful 
 great things which had come to pass since I left 
 her, and she did not believe me. Can you wonder? 
 Not that she openly declared a disbelief, as any 
 woman out of my own race would have been only 
 too quick to do, under like circumstances. She 
 only looked it, but by that she made it sufficiently 
 plain to me, and I roared with laughter. Then I 
 could read it in her face that she thought I had been 
 drinking, and she managed, very slyly, as she 
 imagined, to come near enough to smell my breath 
 without seeming to do so, and when, with that con- 
 clusive test, she found herself mistaken, I surmise 
 she was taken with a fear that I had been stricken 
 in my mind, what with all my worry. At all events, 
 she paled visibly, and regarded me most anxiously. 
 Nor was her anxiety much allayed when I danced 
 about her in a frolicsome manner, shouting and 
 laughing, even though I snatched a hearty kiss as 
 often as I came near her, a thing which no woman 
 ever looked upon as a symptom of insanity, I am 
 sure. 
 
 But in due time, when I had sobered down, and 
 still stuck to my story, and had told it over and over 
 without variation, her doubts had to give way, and 
 the doubts of the others, likewise, who were similarly 
 
122 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 affected with misgivings, at first blush, as why 
 should they not be, with the improbability of it all? 
 It was a fairy story, no less, and there were times 
 when I found myself, even, on the verge of doubt- 
 ing it. 
 
 And so we had pulled our castle down out of the 
 air, but we were not forgetful, in our joy, of the 
 many things yet to be done, nor failed to bear in 
 mind that these things had to be done by ourselves. 
 The fairy godmother had done all that was to be 
 expected of her. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Our chaffering-s, now that we were come into such 
 a prosperity of fortune, centered about the choice 
 of the land. Not a wight of us knew anything 
 more of soil than that it was composed of dirt, and 
 dirt was dirt, but don't imagine that we were si- 
 lenced by our ignorance. I can laugh, for all the 
 years that have passed, as often as I recall the amaz- 
 ing theories that were broached by one or another of 
 us, especially as no harm came of them, owing to 
 the fortunate circumstance of our being convinced 
 of one another's incompetence, if not each of his 
 own. Nobody believed a word of what anybody 
 else had to say about soils and such like. 
 
 But one thing we did know, and know well, and 
 that was the hunger of city people after the greens 
 which farmers raise, and our discussions were 
 practical at least in that we developed the signifi- 
 cance of this, as it was related to our venture, and 
 agreed to make the most of it. We fancied, and not 
 without reason, as it turned out, that we should have 
 a certain advantage over ordinary farmers, through 
 having learned by experience the likes and dislikes 
 of the people who consume the products of the land. 
 Why was it, we asked ourselves, that the veget- 
 ables sold in the city, or at any rate the vegetables 
 
124 ^ Lord of Lands. 
 
 sold to the poor, were stale, flat and unprofitable, 
 as somebody has said of something else, devoid of 
 sap and zest, virtually dead and kept in an edible 
 condition only by a species of embalmment? Why 
 was it not possible to deliver vegetables direct to the 
 consumer, without the intervention of the commis- 
 sion man with his ghastly cold room, and the grocer 
 with his only less ghastly sprinkler? We decided 
 that it was possible, and that we were just the 
 fellows to bring it to pass. And with that, we came 
 to a definite condition with regard to our land, 
 namely, it must be located within striking distance 
 of some considerable city, that is, such a distance 
 as might be covered, going and coming, at a foot 
 pace, with a moderate load, in a day's time. Myself 
 and two others were chosen a committee to go and 
 close up the business with Jones Baring, and our 
 only real instructions were to have the land with- 
 in twenty miles of a city, somewhere. We were 
 warned and exhorted endlessly, on every imaginable 
 head, but withal so vaguely as to feel in nowise 
 guided, except as I say. 
 
 Jones Baring received us most graciously and 
 took us himself to a distant part of the building and 
 there introduced us to the land agent of the com- 
 pany, in terms which left us in no doubt that we were 
 to get the best there was in the shop. It made my 
 associates stare and gasp, and indeed I doubt if they 
 rightly knew where they were after that moment. 
 The land agent was as affable as possible, and pulled 
 down maps and opened books and sent his clerks 
 scurrying this way and that after information, until 
 
A Lord of Lands. 125 
 
 I began to feel a bit dizzy, myself, over our im- 
 portance. 
 
 In saying that we came with but one definite 
 condition in mind, I should remind you that we had 
 calculated, all along, on paying no more than ten 
 dollars an acre for our land. This, in strictness, 
 constituted another condition, which prudence 
 obliged us to insist on. Otherwise, we were pre- 
 pared to take whatever we were offered, but now, at 
 once, uncertainties began to arise. 
 
 " What," said the agent, as he rummaged about 
 his papers, "is your idea of a city? We have all 
 sorts of cities on our lines. We have a few with 
 more than a hundred thousand people in them, we 
 have others with ten thousand, and still others with 
 a thousand. Of course you understand that the 
 larger the city, the further away from it you will 
 have to go before you come upon land which can 
 be bought for ten dollars an acre." 
 
 Of course, as he said, we understood it, now that 
 he spoke of it, but never hitherto. I looked at the 
 other members of the committee and they looked at 
 me, and I perceived that if any definite answer 
 were made, I had it to make. 
 
 " Well," I said, casting about in my mind uncer- 
 tainly, " I suppose for our purpose a city is a place 
 so large that the people in it cannot afford to have 
 gardens of their own, and must buy all their truck." 
 
 I doubt if the agent was much enlightened by 
 this, but he nodded, and did not press the point 
 further. 
 
 ''And then," he went on, after a little, "how 
 
126 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 about the soil? If you insist on a heavy soil, you 
 will have to go further away from your city than 
 if you are content with a light soil. The heavy 
 soil is taken first, and by the time a city has grown 
 up, there is none of it left, for miles in every 
 direction, except at a fancy price." 
 
 My colleagues looked blanker than ever. We all 
 reahzed that we were getting into deep water, for 
 however confidently we might have discussed soils, 
 with one another, now that we had the choice to 
 make, we were far enough from feeling secure of 
 our footing. I thought of beating about the bush 
 a little, by way of gaining time. (Elizabeth warns 
 me that I am mixing my metaphors, here, and I 
 daresay I am, not being used to handling the things, 
 and accordingly I plead guilty and throw myself 
 on the mercy of the court.) 
 
 " I have read somewhere," said I, " that the 
 success of farming depends more on the character 
 of the man than on the character of the soil." 
 
 The agent smiled, at this, in such a way as 
 encouraged me to think I had said something pretty 
 good, although by accident. 
 
 " If we can't have both," said he, " by all means 
 give us the strong man rather than the strong soil. 
 But the two together make an excellent team." 
 
 It was no easy position I found myself in. Here 
 I was, making decisions, with nothing to guide me 
 in my dense ignorance except luck and a certain 
 general instinct of shrewdness, yet aware all the 
 while that matters of vital consequence were in- 
 volved. I might have asked for more time and 
 
A Lord of Lands. 127 
 
 gone back to the others for their sense, which course 
 would have been more democratical and proper, 
 by right, to say nothing of its reheving me of the 
 responsibihty. But as against such a course, there 
 was the hkehhood of its proving ineffectual. I 
 knew only too well how little chance there was of 
 ever coming to a decision, by general agreement. 
 Where several men try to agree about something 
 which none of them well understands, it is seldom 
 they make out much. Every man would have his 
 opinion, and no good reason to doubt that it was 
 as good as another's, and so he would stick by it, 
 and we should come off happily if friction and 
 bad feeling were not engendered, with no de- 
 cision after all. In the short moment I had 
 for reflection, it seemed clear to me that I should 
 take the hazard, though I well understood how 
 great it was, and settle the matter then and there, 
 as the dazed and helpless condition of the rest of 
 the committee permitted me to do. It was no time 
 to be standing on the nice definitions of authority. 
 The situation had been given into my hands, and I 
 accepted the trust. 
 
 " Give us," said I, therefore, with hardly more 
 leading than the spur of the moment, " give us, 
 if you please, a section of land which is all land, 
 without surface water or useless bog, and have it 
 as near a city as possible, at the price we specify. 
 These are the main considerations. As for the 
 soil, any soil where nature raises a strong turf ought 
 to do us very well." 
 
 It was an old saying which I quoted. I have a 
 
128 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 notion it came out of Ireland, originally, but as 
 to that I have forgotten. All I know is that it 
 popped into my mind as I spoke, poked out of the 
 mass of rubbish in my memory, as it were by the 
 occasion. It is a meritorious saying, as I have since 
 learned. Wherever a good turf grows, man may 
 plant in reasonable confidence that he will reap. 
 
 But we had not come to the end of our per- 
 plexities, even yet. 
 
 "What about trees?" said the agent. *' We 
 have land variously wooded, timber land, oak open- 
 ings, and prairie. I suppose we have more of the 
 latter than anything else." 
 
 I pictured to myself, even as he was speaking, 
 the gloom of the dense forest, and the dreary 
 flatness of the prairie, and then I wondered about 
 the oak openings. I asked the agent if these might 
 be something in the nature of a mean between the 
 other two, and he replied that they were, as he was 
 informed; rolling ground, with moderate hills and 
 valleys, scattered over with groves of small trees. 
 
 " Why, then, the oak openings, for my part," I 
 said, turning with an inquiring glance to my col- 
 leagues, who nodded, in a bewildered way. 
 
 I suspect that we owe more to the discernment of 
 the agent than we thought, at the time. He made 
 out to gather, from our stumbling replies, about 
 what we needed, though we did not well know 
 ourselves, and went on to provide us accordingly. 
 After some more looking into books and tracing out 
 of maps, he announced that he had found a parcel 
 of land which would suit us, in all probability, but 
 
A Lord of Lands. i^^ 
 
 in order to make quite sure, he would like to have 
 time to write to the nearest station-master for more 
 exact information than he had at hand. Would we 
 kindly call again, in about a week or ten days? 
 
 We would, and we did, and thereupon, all being 
 well, we straightway closed the deal and signed the 
 preliminary contracts. This last, I should add, was 
 not brought about without the exercise of a degree 
 of overbearingness on my part, for my colleagues of 
 the committee were shy of putting their names, in 
 ink, to a document the force and purport of which 
 they did not fully understand. They were afraid 
 of what might come of it, and drew back. It was 
 only another manifestation of the narrowness of 
 view into which our manner of life had got us. 
 Prudence is all right, and a valuable trait, in its 
 place and time, but risks have got to be run, and 
 credit has got to be given to the fair intentions of 
 others, even though the proof of them is somewhat 
 lacking, or else business will never get forward. I 
 saw how it was with my friends, and I am not 
 denying it was a good deal so with me, though I 
 did not let it appear, and we asked for a few minutes 
 in which to consult, and these being given, we went 
 out into the street and had an earnest talk, by which 
 we made out to get ourselves persuaded. Of course 
 it would have been downright stupid in us to have 
 refused our faith to the men who had given their 
 faith so markedly to us, but if you are a poor man, 
 you will understand how the case stood. It was a 
 hard matter for us to sign those papers, and though 
 we set our names down with an assumption of 
 9 
 
130 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 cheerfulness, we had still our misgivings, all the 
 more oppressive for being utterly vague and intan- 
 gible. Shrewd business men have learned to rely on 
 a degree of common honesty, but we poor, with all 
 our hard knocks, rise but hardly to their confidence. 
 I will say at once, since I may not get a better 
 chance, that we made out excellently well, in the 
 choice of our land, whether it be due to the interest 
 of the agent, or to the intercession of that special 
 providence which is said to watch over the weak 
 and foolish. I can truthfully say, to-day, with all 
 the knowledge of farming I have gained, that a 
 more suitable tract would be hard to find. We are 
 within sixteen miles of a city which had some 
 seventy thousand people when we came, and has 
 twice as many now. The nearest railway station 
 is only three miles away, and while we found no- 
 body there, at first, a fine little village has since 
 sprung up, where we have a market for not a little 
 of our produce, and what is most important, the best 
 facilities for shipping abroad. Here, for instance, 
 w^e take our cream, and consign it by express to a 
 great confectioner in the city, and have no more 
 to do about it except to endorse the check which 
 comes back by the next mail and turn it into 
 the village bank. In these blessed days farmers 
 and their wives have no need to know how to make 
 butter and cheese in order to carry on a dairy to 
 the best advantage, and what that means only they 
 know who have seen something of the drudgery 
 of the old way, and of the uncertainty of results, 
 with all the drudgery. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 131 
 
 There comes to me more and more, as I write, 
 the thought that a farmer is in some degree made 
 over by his farm. When I consider how wonder- 
 fully suitable my own farm seems to me now, I 
 have to ask myself if this may not arise chiefly from 
 my having adapted myself, or been adapted, to it, 
 and the practical bearing of the thought lies in the 
 further question whether the availabihty of land is 
 something to be discovered beforehand, by minute 
 scrutiny, or something to be developed and produced 
 by faithful application. It is a comfort to believe 
 that in farming less depends upon the exterior 
 circumstances which you cannot control, than in 
 almost any other line of human endeavor. 
 
 But I run ahead of my story. 
 
 When we had got the papers signed, sealed and 
 delivered, and everything done that could be done 
 for the present, we all went back to work, with 
 stout hearts and good hope, and kept pegging away 
 at the old jobs till the first day of March. During 
 the two months and upwards intervening, we set 
 ourselves to practise the most rigid economy, sav- 
 ing to the uttermost, paring expenses down to the 
 very limit of safety, and it was a surprising thing, 
 in view of our habitual parsimony, as we thought it, 
 how many odd pennies we managed to hold, under 
 the stimulation of our new purpose, whereas hitherto 
 everything had slipped through our fingers with- 
 out leaving as much as a tickling behind. We made 
 out thus to amass a slender little fund, some more 
 and some less, none much, but all enough to serve, 
 and this was what the women and children were to 
 
13^ A Lord of Lands. 
 
 live on, while we men fared forth to make ready out 
 new homes. Perhaps we went to unnecessary 
 trouble, but I think not. We might have dipped 
 into our loan, I daresay, but we decided that we 
 would much rather not, and if we were not right as 
 a matter of business economy, I am convinced we 
 lost nothing by the discipline we subjected ourselves 
 to. Our moral muscles were the better for the 
 exercise. 
 
 On the first day of March we cast the die and 
 crossed the Rubicon. We quit our old jobs for 
 good and all, and that was like burning our bridges 
 behind us, and called for more grit than every- 
 body will imagine, more than any of us could easily 
 summon up. But as in the case of tooth-puUing, 
 where the agony is all crowded into the bare instant 
 when the nerve separates, so we rallied promptly 
 once we were off, for the West, and after that the 
 excitement of novelty kept us occupied. It was a 
 grand trip for us, full of the most stimulating and 
 broadening experiences. We drew not a little atten- 
 tion to ourselves, what with being sixteen stalwart, 
 sound, clean men in a party, and we were being 
 made of by somebody or other all the way, not 
 with lavish entertainment, of course, but with a 
 show of kindly interest, worth at least as much. 
 We came to the city which lay near our new home 
 in fine trim, thoroughly refreshed in body and spirit 
 by the few days of travel, as full of ginger and as 
 anxious to get at the great things before us as men 
 could well be. 
 
 Here we were to purchase our material and 
 
A Lord of Lands. 133 
 
 supplies. Jones Baring had the financial arrange- 
 ments all made, through the company's local lawyer, 
 to whom I bore a letter of introduction. His name 
 was Beverly, and a crusty old fellow he seemed, at 
 first, though he turned out to be one of the kindest, 
 as well as one of the wisest of men. Beverly had 
 orders to pay our bills up to a certain amount, and 
 for certain specified purchases (this provision, I 
 well understood, was to guard against the chance of 
 our losing our heads and spending the money for 
 frippery, and while it might be unnecessary, could 
 not be blamed) and to afford us every assistance in 
 the way of counsel. 
 
 For a day or so, our carpenters were the most 
 important persons of our party. They scurried 
 about from early morning till late at night, each of 
 them attended by two or three of the rest of us as 
 lackeys to save him work wherever it was possible, 
 until they had visited every last lumber-yard in 
 the place, and compared prices, and scrutinized the 
 stock, and otherwise put themselves in a way to 
 buy advantageously. They drove a bargain at last 
 which made Beverly chuckle when he paid the shot, 
 and wore off a great part of his crustiness. The 
 lumber-dealers, when they found out what a great 
 lot of lumber we wanted, I forget how many thou- 
 sand feet in all, fell on one another, figuratively 
 speaking, with knives, and, in the heat of rivalry, 
 slashed one another's prices most agreeably. When 
 it came to delivering the goods, the man of whom 
 we finally bought, having cooled somewhat, to the 
 point of being no longer forgetful of his own wel- 
 
134 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 fare, undertook to fill the order with inferior stuff, 
 but our men were watching him and he had to give 
 it up. They inspected every stick and splinter as it 
 was loaded on the cars, and with their trained eyes, 
 it was impossible to fool them. 
 
 Meanwhile, our teamsters had been acquitting 
 themselves of their part. They too were making 
 use of their technical skill for the common good. 
 They had a pretty definite idea where good horses 
 were to be got cheap, and they drove a bargain which 
 pleased Beverly hardly less than the other. Indeed, 
 after he had paid for the horses and the lumber, his 
 manner took on a sort of glow, as often as we came 
 near him, as if he thought we had done some great 
 thing, and if we taught him that there is more thrift, 
 and enterprise, and shrewdness among the poor 
 than he had imagined, I am glad. In those days 
 the street cars were still being drawn by horses, and 
 it was wearing on them. But beasts w^hich could 
 no longer drag a heavy car at a trot over rough 
 pavement had often much good in them, for less 
 exacting service, especially as they were always 
 good horses to begin with. Moreover, there were 
 the condemned horses of the fire department, splen- 
 did fellows, and but slightly disabled. We bought 
 two teams of the street car company and one of the 
 fire department, and all these, together with neces- 
 sary harness, cost us less than two hundred dollars. 
 They were tolerably young yet, heavily built, healthy 
 and sound except for being foundered in the shoul- 
 ders. They would go lame if hurried, but at a walk 
 they were as good as they had ever been, which was 
 
A Lord of Lands. 135 
 
 very good indeed. The two fire horses, especially, 
 made us proud when we looked upon them, they held 
 their heads up so spiritedly, and looked out so saga- 
 ciously and generously. But they had to be handled 
 with great care, for they never, with all their wis- 
 dom rose to a clear understanding of the wrongful- 
 ness of running away, having been schooled, in 
 their earlier years, to the belief that the merit 
 of performance lay in the promptitude of it. 
 On the very slightest occasion, or no occasion at all, 
 if they felt uncommonly good, they would take it 
 in their heads that there was a fire somewhere, and 
 then we had to look out or they were up and away 
 at top speed. 
 
 Our teamsters knew a good wagon when they 
 saw it, too, going at once to the substance and 
 making nothing of the paint and polish which to the 
 inexpert are only too apt to spell worth. They 
 discovered three old wagons which had plenty of 
 wear in them yet, but were going begging for lack 
 of the outward gloss of newness, and these they 
 bought for a song. Some of the rest of us, more 
 moderately gifted with special knowledge, had at- 
 tended to the purchase of staple supplies, such as 
 flour, salt meat, beans, and a bit of dried fruit to 
 furnish a variety without making it cost more than 
 it was worth, and these articles, together with two 
 second-hand cook-stoves, and the pots and pans 
 needful for a rude cookery, we loaded on the wag- 
 ons, which were to go out by the highway. The 
 teamsters went with their teams, of course, but the 
 rest of us went with the lumber, partly in order to 
 
136 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 be on the spot to begin with the unloading as soon 
 as it should arrive, and partly because of my warn- 
 ings against letting the consignment out of our sight, 
 lest it go astray. I knew something of the care- 
 lessness of the crews of freight-trains, in those 
 days. 
 
 I verily believe our station, as it appeared on our 
 first arrival, was about the loneliest, dreariest place 
 in the world. The outlook there gave us our first 
 setback since leaving home. There wasn't a 
 blessed thing to make a station of it except a rude 
 side-track built of broken, wornout rails, not a 
 shelter of any sort, nor a sign of human habitation 
 to be seen. This last circumstance was due to a 
 blinding snowstorm which had swooped down all 
 of a sudden, blotting out the landscape, with its 
 rolling fields and clusters of farm buildings, plainly 
 visible in clear weather. We seemed, for the mo- 
 ment, to have been dropped down into a very wilder- 
 ness, and I know the hearts of all of us sank to a 
 low level when the train, having cut our cars out 
 and shoved them into the siding, rumbled off into 
 the bosom of the storm. Involuntarily we stood 
 listening until we could hear it no longer, as one 
 might listen to the footfalls of a dear friend depart- 
 ing forever, and then, as by a common sense of the 
 necessities, we fell to with prodigious industry, 
 affecting a great heartiness, while we unloaded the 
 lumber, and shouted and sang songs and capered 
 about, all with a view to raising our spirits. We 
 made out none too well, for it was no easy matter. 
 The storm in itself was a considerable trial, unused 
 
A Lord of Lands. 137 
 
 as we were to the inclemency, for while we had met 
 with stormy weather enough, in our lives, such 
 weather as this was new to us, chiefly by reason 
 of the wind sweeping so fiercely down upon us 
 across a great expanse of open, flat country. The 
 snow was wet and sticky, and we were soon 
 drenched to the skin with it, and although the cold 
 was by no means severe, it was enough to benumb 
 our fingers and render them all but useless. Stew- 
 ing thus in our wet garments, I wondered some, in 
 a dismal way, what might not be the effect of the 
 exposure, and thought how readily a hard cold 
 will lead to something serious, and how sad a plight 
 we should be in if a number of us fell sick. 
 
 To add to our wretchedness, the wagons, which 
 had started from the city before us, and had been 
 more than five hours on the road, were not arrived, 
 whereas we had confidently expected to find them 
 waiting for U3. We tried to believe that they had 
 merely gone astray, or met with some unforeseen 
 delay, but more than one of us, I know by the 
 look in their faces, harbored a most unjust and 
 monstrous doubt, and asked themselves in their 
 hearts what was to hinder these men from ab- 
 sconding, with our common property. It is not an 
 agreeable circumstance to recall, I can tell you, and 
 I speak of it only to show how low we were in our 
 minds. Of course, there was no shred of ground 
 for such a suspicion, but where a man is thoroughly 
 dejected, he will choose to think the worst. 
 
 Into the midst of the gloom, which thickened 
 steadily in spite of our efforts to throw it off, there 
 
138 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 suddenly shot a rift of light, in the form of a man, 
 who drove up in a Hght buggy, looming out of the 
 storm in a manner almost startling, like a spectral 
 apparition. He had a broad red face with a fringe 
 of gray whiskers, into which the snow had sifted 
 in a most comical fashion, and he was as radiant 
 with smiles as the sun in June. Take him all in 
 all, with the circumstances, he was about as cheer- 
 ful a spectacle as could well be imagined, and the 
 snow melting and running off his ruddy visage in 
 rivulets made it appear as if nature even in her 
 austerest mood could not overcome his genial 
 warmth, or touch him without yielding to the effects 
 of it. He jumped out of his buggy briskly and be- 
 fore we had time to say a word he was shaking 
 hands with us all round. 
 
 '' My name's Tucker," he said, in a big, roaring 
 voice, and with the Yankee style of speech which I 
 cannot pretend to render with more than approxi- 
 mate accuracy. '' Now I s'pose yew'll be the new 
 folks that's a-movin' in ontew the railroad section. 
 Well, by Heck, I'm right down glad to see ye. 
 Thought I'd jest nachly run over like an' see if I 
 couldn't somehow mebbe be of some 'sistance." 
 
 It was no great thing, as I tell it, this curious 
 old man dropping down among us, but if he had 
 been an angel with a flaming sword or other equally 
 convincing credentials, come to pledge us the 
 help and protection of the Most High, I doubt if 
 we should have been much more raised up. Perhaps 
 as it had taken but little to cast us down, it needed 
 but little to restore us, and perhaps, too, our spirits 
 
A Lord of Lands. 139 
 
 had got to the bottom and were on the point of 
 reacting anyway. But be that as it may, the fact 
 stands. As we shook hands with him, and looked 
 into his warm, dripping face, radiant with good 
 feehng, we had to be glad. 
 
 *' Now, hain't they suthin' I kin dew tew 'sist 
 ye?" he kept saying, over and over. 
 
 When we had found our tongues a little, we told 
 him that we were somewhat at a loss through not 
 knowing just where our land lay, further than that 
 it was about three miles to the northward of the 
 station, and if he would put us in the way of find- 
 ing it, we should be obliged. 
 
 Tucker fairly leaped with delight. 
 
 " Will I? " he shouted, with a burst of boisterous 
 laughter. " Wull, I reckon I just about will," and 
 then he went on to say that he knew where every 
 corner in the town was, better, by Heck, than the 
 county surveyor, even if he was a college graduate, 
 which didn't save a man from being just naturally 
 a numskull if he was built that way, not by a jug- 
 ful. From this he drifted to other topics, all in the 
 freest and easiest way, with every evidence of can- 
 dor, and as we warmed under the spell of his 
 warmth, we became communicative on our part. It 
 was not long until we had told him about our 
 wagons, and our uneasiness concerning them. 
 
 " Wull, now, by Heck, don't ye pester ! " cried 
 the old man. " 'Tain't no wonder they hain't come, 
 with the roads the way they be. The roads is jest 
 nachly dod-gasted mis'ble, this spring, wust I ever 
 see. It don't noways matter, anyhow, I've got 
 
140 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 itwo teams in my barn hain't done nuthin' all winter 
 but eat their heads off. They're spilin' fer suthin' 
 tew dew, an' by the jumped-up John Rogers, I'll 
 jest nachly go fetch 'em, an' 'sist ye with yer lum- 
 ber." 
 
 Now we were that unaccustomed to being served 
 in any way without money and without price that we 
 made the mistake of supposing that Tucker would 
 have to be paid, if he came with his teams. We 
 hemmed and hawed some, feeling the awkwardness 
 of expressing ourselves, but finally out with it that 
 we could not afford to hire any help. At this 
 Tucker roared his loudest, in protest. 
 
 '*Hire?" he snorted, disdainfully. "Hire noth- 
 in'! 'Twon't cost ye a red, nary a red. 'Tain't 
 nothin' more'n a neighborly turn, nohow, an' I 
 guess I hain't a-goin' to ask no pay for a neighborly 
 turn. No, sirree ! " 
 
 Saying which, he jumped back into his buggy 
 and vanished, the way he came, leaving us vastly 
 heartened, as I say, but something mystified, withal. 
 It was our first contact with neighborliness in its 
 bland, rural aspect, and we could hardly take it at 
 its value. It seemed too beautiful to be human. 
 
 While we speculated over Tucker, and his mo- 
 tives, our own wagons came up, wet and muddy, the 
 horses about worn out, and the men looking any- 
 thing but cheerful. They were accompanied by a 
 farmer who had come along with them to show the 
 way. They had overtaken him driving out from 
 the city, and he proved to be a near neighbor of 
 ours. That being discovered, no more was needed 
 
A Lord of Lands. 141 
 
 to fire him with a friendly concern for us. His 
 name was Baldwin, and he was another Yankee, as 
 his speech at once revealed. 
 
 "When I heered how ye was comin' in here 
 puffik strangers, an' new to farmin', an' the weather 
 so onery like," said he, '' by Gorry, if I didn't say 
 to myself I'll jest go 'long an' mebbe I kin be of 
 some 'sistance. Jest a neighborly turn, ye know," 
 he added, as if he divined that we might think we 
 had his services to pay for. He was not much like 
 Tucker, either in person or manner, being smaller 
 and quieter, and more sallow than red, and rather 
 lean, but he had quite the same marvelous enchant- 
 ment upon him, as it appeared to us, accustomed to 
 urban neighborliness. 
 
 And now, to make our felicity complete, the sun 
 burst out and the storm fled, as suddenly as it had 
 come, with a final howl of baffled spite, and the air 
 turned as soft as you could wish. Such is the 
 temper of March, the fiercest and the ficklest of 
 months. But it was a blessed March we had that 
 year, for all the bad beginning. All through it was 
 like May out of place. May, in her turn, I should 
 add, was much what March ordinarily is, to pay us 
 back. If you will believe me, I planted corn that 
 first year with mittens on my hands, and I was none 
 too warm at that. But this freakish ordering of the 
 weather suited us admirably. In May we were 
 ready for anything, whereas a blustering March 
 would have been sorely against us. 
 
 The work had lagged, some, in the sourness and 
 gloom, but now it went on merrily enough. We 
 
142 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 dried off as if by magic, and instead of the doleful, 
 stewing stickiness, we were in a delightful glow all 
 over, the effect of the air being suddenly cleansed 
 of its oppressive vapors. Our climate gives us 
 discomfort enough, but its compensations are gener- 
 ous and satisfying. A single day of fine weather 
 is enough to make us forgive and forget a dozen 
 wretched days, the fine day is so extremely fine, with 
 a balmy crispness which we fondly believe is not to 
 be found elsewhere, in such degree. You may think 
 me flippant, but our weather puts me very much 
 in mind of the little girl in the children's jingle, 
 who had the little curl in the middle of her fore- 
 head, and who, when she was good, was very, very 
 good, whereas when she was bad she was horrid. 
 
 It was only a jiffy or such a matter until we had 
 the lumber off the cars, and the four wagons, that 
 is, our three and Baldwin's one, loaded with as 
 much of it as the horses could pull. Just as we 
 were laying on the last sticks, Tucker came up with 
 his two wagons, and we loaded them likewise, in 
 a brisk mood, laughing all the time, partly because 
 of the old man's quaint quips and sallies, but chiefiy, 
 I think, because nothing but laughter would ex- 
 press our feelings, now. We were ready to laugh 
 at everything which offered, and if nothing offered, 
 then at nothing at all. We made a brave show, 
 when we started off at last, with our six towering 
 loads, and the dozen of us on foot bringing up the 
 rear. We passed two farms on the way, and the 
 people all came out to the roadside, and stared at us 
 very hard, but always in the friendliest spirit, and 
 
A Lord of Lands. 143 
 
 at both places the man of the house walked along 
 with us a little way, and shook hands, and asked 
 many questions, which, although they were rather 
 pointed, not to say impertinent, we knew to be well 
 meant, and answered freely and frankly and lost 
 nothing by it. We were beginning to understand 
 that we had come into a different world, where peo- 
 ple cared more about one another and had by that 
 a better right to know one another's affairs. These 
 two men urged us, again and again, to call on them 
 if they could be of any assistance whatever. It 
 seemed to me that I had never heard that word as- 
 sistance (they miostly called it 'sistance, and although 
 I am for upholding the purity of the language, I 
 confess I like it better that way, as being more 
 homely and hearty) spoken so often in so short a 
 time, and certainly never with such a ring of 
 sincerity. But there was always this singularity 
 about the manner of Tucker and Baldwin, that while 
 they fairly overflowed with neighborliness for us, 
 they seemed to have very little of it for each other. 
 My impression at the time was that never a word 
 passed between them, and I was right in it, as I 
 found out afterwards. 
 
 Virgin land has always a rough, ragged look, 
 unless it be prairie, and a general air of worthless- 
 ness except to the practised eye. When first we 
 set foot on our estate I think we all experienced a 
 shock of disappointment. I know I did. The trees 
 were mostly of the sort called black oak, now 
 pretty much extinct, not unhandsome if kept 
 pruned, but if left to themselves acquiring a dis- 
 
144 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 reputable fringe of dead branches which is quite 
 enough to spoil their looks, although the foliage is 
 a most beautiful deep green which turns to such 
 gorgeous reds and yellows with the touch of frost 
 as you cannot imagine. All about these there grew 
 dense masses of hazel and brier, and just now, in the 
 early spring, there were the dead vines and weeds of 
 yesteryear hanging dismally. The thicket was the 
 mark of a good soil, as I ought to have known, 
 but none the less I was depressed by the aspect of 
 it, I daresay because it was so different from what I 
 had expected. What the land agent had told us 
 about oak openings had somehow left in my mind a 
 picture of sweeping lawns with velvety grass. 
 
 But of the surest solace in every trial, namely, 
 work, there was a great plenty at hand, and right 
 lustily we laid our hands to it. We unloaded the 
 wagons and sent them back, with men enough to 
 make easy the handling of the wet, sodden sticks. 
 The carpenters, whose chests we had jealously kept 
 with us all the way, in anticipation of the present 
 use for them, went instantly about the business of 
 framing the timbers, marking out the patterns, 
 while others of us wielded the saw and broadax, to 
 save them the heavier labor. The three or four who 
 were left went out with Tucker and Baldwin, who 
 knew the corners, and laid out the building plots 
 according to the maps which Jones Baring had had 
 his surveyors draw for us, with all the measure- 
 ments set down accurately, and each man's name 
 appended to the plot which had fallen to him by 
 lot. That is to say, our medicine, as I may term 
 
A Lord of Lands. 145 
 
 it, was ready mixed for us, in advance, and we had 
 nothing to do but take it. There was no room 
 for bickering. Not everybody was suited with the 
 outcome, but nobody could with good face com- 
 plain. I felt not a little put out, myself, when I saw, 
 or thought I saw, that my plot was quite the worst 
 of all, high and sandy at one end and low and sedgy 
 at the other, with no great amount of right good 
 land between, but it was something to reflect that 
 my misfortune, as I called it then, gave me the 
 opportunity to set an example of cheerful resigna- 
 tion, which I proceeded to do, with all the frills. 
 Of course it was no misfortune at all. When I had 
 become acquainted with my land, learned its moods 
 and whims, so to speak, and adapted myself to it, 
 by that process which I have already spoken of and 
 which every good farmer knows the effect of, I 
 would not have any other. The very poorest of it, 
 high and dry and so thin that a dog digging for 
 a gopher would bring up the white gravel, this 
 served admirably, with its perfect drainage, for a 
 building spot. It is something to be able to throw 
 out the great quantities of water a housekeeper has 
 to dispose of, with the feeling that it will take care 
 of itself, in the twinkling of an eye, and not stand 
 and fester in the sun, to pollute the air and offend 
 the senses. Our plot is fortunate, too, in sloping 
 toward the north, though that circumstance gave 
 it a bleakness to my unknowing eye, for by this it 
 is especially adapted to the culture of fruits, sav- 
 ing them from being pushed too soon into bloom by 
 the direct rays of the spring sun. 
 10 
 
146 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 Many hands make light work, saith the proverb, 
 and the dihgent hand maketh the task light, too, 
 and those houses went up as by magic. There was 
 such a confusion of hammering and sawing there 
 during the space of a month that people came out 
 for to see from miles away, and not only that, but to 
 help as the chance offered, if it was no more than 
 to lend a hand with the raising of a frame. It was 
 the best possible way of getting acquainted, with 
 the work in hand affording the most acceptable 
 material for conversation, and after the men had 
 come over and broken the ice, the women followed, 
 and the children, all consumed with curiosity, to be 
 sure, but friendly to the last degree. Thus we were 
 making ourselves homes in a double sense, prepar- 
 ing the bodily habitations, and at the same time 
 knitting up those ties of neighborly interest which 
 are scarcely less important. You will easily believe 
 that after the first day's trials and disappointments 
 and disillusionments, we had no further occasion 
 for getting down in the mouth, what with our work 
 crowding us all the time, and the hospitality which 
 was being showered upon us from every side, like 
 the sweet dew of heaven. Such real hospitality it 
 seemed to me there never was, outside the story- 
 books (I shall have to except Tucker and Baldwin 
 somewhat, I fear, in the name of strict truth, for 
 they, although they did more than anybody else for 
 us, and have my everlasting thanks for it, had an ax 
 to grind, none the less, and made us think, before we 
 were done, that we had paid pretty dear for their 
 favor.) As for bounds, it simply had none, that we 
 
A Lord of Lands. 147 
 
 ever discovered. We had to find us a place to sleep 
 until we should be able to get up a shelter of our 
 own, for the nights were cold enough, and although 
 two or three of the brave, adventurous spirits were 
 for rolling themselves in blankets and sleeping on 
 the ground, the better sense prevailed and we voted 
 such a thing out of the question, for us, and spoke 
 for quarters in the nearest barns. But do you sup- 
 pose the people would have it ? Not they. Nothing 
 would do them but we must come and sleep in their 
 houses, and their best rooms at that, which they 
 kept for company, and when we held back and 
 showed a reluctance, which we could not help but 
 feel, fearing to impose on them, they were ready to 
 quarrel with us over it, and displayed temper, in 
 a mild way, of course. But we held firmly to our 
 resolution to put them to no such trouble as that, 
 and at last the matter was compromised by our 
 being suffered to bunk in the barns, provided we 
 used all the blankets and comforters they brought 
 us (we all but smothered under the profusion of 
 them) and came in and had hot coffee and buck- 
 wheat cakes with them every morning before set- 
 ting out for work. I suppose the best of entertain- 
 ment is where the guest is made to feel that he is 
 doing his host a favor, and if our entertainment 
 during those first days did not rise to that level, 
 then I have never met with any that did. 
 
 And never a penny of pay would they take. It 
 was only a neighborly turn, they said, as often as 
 we spoke of our obligation, and they recoiled in 
 horror from the barest suggestion that they take pay 
 
148 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 for doing a neighborly turn. Only a neighborly 
 turn? As if anything could be greater. God is 
 never kinder to a creature of His, I think, than 
 when he gives a man good neighbors. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 All the while we were building and getting ready, 
 a month and a few days over, we kept in touch with 
 our womenkind, some one of us writing to them 
 every day, and some one of them writing back. We 
 practised the innocent deception of writing only 
 about the pleasant things, the goodness of the 
 neighbors, and the bracing purity of the air, and 
 the freedom, and I doubt not they did likewise on 
 their part, for in all likelihood they had their 
 troubles, what with having to manage so parsimoni- 
 ously, to say nothing of the uneasiness of youn^ 
 families being separated that way. They had their 
 work to do, too, getting our household goods in 
 shape to ship, the fragile things in crates and the 
 better furniture swathed in burlaps, and whether 
 that is easy work or otherwise, they who have had 
 it to do need not be told. A Methodist parson 
 whom I once knew used to say that he rested his 
 assurance of the divine ordinance of his office on 
 the rule of itinerancy, which then prevailed in his 
 Church. He was firmly convinced that no mere 
 man could ever have the heart to impose upon a 
 fellow-man the unspeakable hardship of having to 
 pack up every three years, and since no man could 
 have done it, it must be the work of God. We had 
 
150 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 planned to bring out, of the furniture which had 
 served us in town, as much as would fill a car, and 
 that would comprise about all we had of value. 
 While we were to have free transportation for our- 
 selves and our goods, and no limit set, as a personal 
 compliment from Jones Baring, we were alive to 
 the danger of riding a free horse to death. Some 
 of us, notably the Rosses, had but little to fetch, but 
 even they had enough for the modest demands of 
 housekeeping in the country, especially after they 
 had traded back their great perambulator for 
 kitchen utensils. 
 
 When the houses were about done, I was chosen, 
 as being better versed than any of the others in the 
 mysteries of railway transportation, to go back and 
 come on with the goods. In our situation, we were 
 convinced, it would never do to have the goods 
 straggling along, as freight was more than likely 
 to straggle, if left to itself. So back I went, and 
 found the goods ready, and got them loaded into 
 the car without mishap or untoward incident, though 
 not without expense, for there were no Samari- 
 tans with wagons to come to our 'sistance, there, 
 and then there rose up a fresh difficulty, which 
 seemed to me pretty formidable. Of course the wo- 
 men and children were to travel express, that is, 
 twice as fast as freight, with freight doing its 
 level best. How was I to get the goods through 
 and have them there for the use of the families, 
 unless I should have at least four days the start, 
 and with every scrap of their furniture gone, and 
 no money left to pay board with, how were the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 151 
 
 families to wait so long before setting- out? For 
 my part, I had no better expedient to offer than that 
 they go on, at once, and make such shift as they 
 could without the goods, until I should arrive, and 
 it was a poor device, with a dozen babies in arms, 
 and a dozen more barely able to toddle, to undergo 
 the trial of a complete change of scene and air, and 
 nothing to make them comfortable with, except as 
 the neighbors might come to the rescue, and they 
 had their limitations, however good their will might 
 be. But when I went to the women with my dif- 
 culty, they laughed at me, and told me I was making 
 more than a mountain out of less than a molehill. 
 Of course, quoth they, they would visit during the 
 four days. Nothing could be easier, in their view, 
 than visiting round for four days, or six days, or 
 ten days, for that matter, if I wished it, for were 
 they not going away for good, with no expectation 
 of ever coming back ? Indeed, people would demand 
 it of them, and feel hurt should they omit it. I will 
 not pretend that I was overly charmed, or that I 
 failed to ask myself whether it was doing pre- 
 cisely as we would be done by, but it was not for me 
 to point out the fine distinctions, since the women 
 were to carry out their program by themselves. So 
 I contented myself with saying that if they would 
 give me four days the start, I would engage to 
 have the goods in the houses when they arrived. 
 Women have a resourcefulness all their own, nor 
 are they necessarily less scrupulous than men, some- 
 thing depending on the point of view. 
 
 Had I the wish to garnish my narrative with 
 
152 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 stirring adventure, I would dwell more upon my 
 journey hither with the goods, for it was a trans- 
 action fraught with surprise and sensation and pro- 
 found uncertainty until the very last. But for the 
 sober purposes I have in view, it will suffice to say 
 that I took in one hand my pass signed with the 
 name of Jones Baring himself, and countersigned by 
 all the various agents and actuaries until it looked 
 like a treaty of peace between two sovereign powers, 
 or something equally as momentous, and if it had 
 looked anything less, I know not what I should have 
 done, and in the other, my union card, in order to 
 invoke the obligation of fraternity where the appeal 
 to authority failed, and labored, and prayed, and 
 stormed, and begged, and threatened, and cajoled, 
 for a week unceasingly, for I scarcely slept in all 
 that time, lest they carelessly cut out our car while 
 my eyes were shut, and leave it in some obscure 
 siding, to be hunted out with no end of trouble and 
 delay. There is the barest possibility, I will confess, 
 that the car would have gone through as quickly, 
 if I had left it to take its chances, but it is the possi- 
 bility of all the powers of heaven and earth conspir- 
 ing in its favor, something which seldom comes to 
 pass, and something which no prudent man counts 
 on. The probability is that our car, in the usual 
 course, would have been anywhere from four to ten 
 weeks on the road, and perhaps even longer. I know 
 how freight was managed in those days, and the 
 wonder to me ever was, not that there was delay in 
 delivery, but rather that there was any delivery at 
 all. You may beheve that I sent up a great sigh of 
 
A Lord of Lands. 153 
 
 relief when I saw our car at last kicked into our sid- 
 ing, the day before the women were due to arrive. 
 I shouted and waved my best thanks to the train 
 crew as they pulled out, and then I made off over 
 the hills to the farm to get the wagons. It seemed 
 to me like coming home, and I whistled and sang, 
 and called out cheerily to every human being I saw 
 on the way. 
 
 By nightfall we had the goods in the houses, and 
 the houses looking as much like homes as mere men 
 alone have it in their power to make any place look 
 like home. The furniture seemed mighty scant 
 in our great new mansions, and after everything 
 was in, there remained an emptiness, and a dis- 
 concerting echo, to mock every sound. I know not 
 what befell that echo, but we heard no more of it 
 after the families came. Possibly the incessant up- 
 roar of the little ones tired it out, but I fancy the 
 truth is that it found no room to do business in after 
 the vacant spaces began to fill up with the number- 
 less things which women know how to make out of 
 nothing. 
 
 We spruced up quite a bit outside, for here we 
 were more in our element. We cut away the worst 
 of the brush and trimmed up the trees which were 
 near the houses, and we removed all the litter of 
 carpentry and raked the ground over, and gave the 
 place withal a bland and finished aspect as compared 
 with its native shagginess. Moreover, nature had 
 not been idle. It was April now, after a warm 
 March, and the growing things were looking up, 
 and the landscape was taking on those first pale 
 
154 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 tints of green, which, by their dehcacy, give to the 
 young spring a charming air of shyness not to be 
 found amid the bold and buxom profuseness of her 
 maturer beauties. 
 
 We husbands and fathers, who had never before 
 been away from, our famiHes for longer than a few 
 hours at a time, naturally made much of this home- 
 coming of the wives and the babies, but the neigh- 
 bors, whom the occasion did not concern at all 
 except sentimentally, made hardly less of it. For 
 a little we were not wholly pleased with this, and 
 thought within ourselves they were just the least bit 
 indelicate to intrude upon our privacy, at such a 
 time, but when we beheld their preparations, how 
 unsparing they were of pains to make welcome these 
 wayfaring strangers, to give comfort to those whose 
 comfort was our first concern, our hearts verily 
 melted and went out to them in love and gratitude. 
 Among those neighbors there were some I could 
 have hugged, that day, I was that moved by seeing 
 them go on as if they had nothing in the world to do 
 but wait upon the pleasure of us and ours, and I did 
 not see the best of it, either, till after. For quite 
 unbeknown to us, the womenfolks had been at work 
 for some days, getting up a great collation of eat- 
 ables, homely viands than which nothing goes better 
 where one is really hungry. I recall especially the 
 ham of their own curing, for it had a flavor wholly 
 different from the rancid bitterness of the meat as 
 the butchers make it, and the baked beans which 
 were really baked, in those wonderful brick ovens 
 which civilization has discarded, I suppose because 
 
A Lord of Lands. 155 
 
 they valued a man's stomach above his time, and 
 doughnuts of the most substantial character, with 
 as much nourishment in one, I firmly believe, as in 
 the pound loaf of the average baker, and the pies, 
 which were two inches deep, not counting the 
 crusts. These good things the women had made 
 ready at their own homes, on the sly, and the mo- 
 ment we were off to meet the train, they hurried 
 over with their burden of good cheer and took 
 possession of our houses, started fires in the stoves, 
 and made coffee and tea, and baked abundant 
 batches of corpulent buttermilk biscuits, and, in 
 short, laid a great feast for us. When we got back, 
 here they were, waiting for us, and diffusing such 
 a warmth of good will as made us think the perfect 
 day had come, or, at all events, a very satisfactory 
 imitation of it. In the fulness of time, we dis- 
 covered that these neighbors were of the brood of 
 Adam and had their faults, like the rest of us, but 
 in the ledger page which holds our final esti- 
 mate of them, there is set down, under the date of 
 that first day when we brought our people home, 
 such a credit as overbalances full many an entry 
 on the other side. 
 
 Nor were the men-folks to be outdone in kind 
 intent, though what they did for us, in this instance, 
 was of less solid advantage, more in the way of a 
 courtesy. Even in those days, when farmers as a 
 class were much poorer than they have since be- 
 come, about every man had him a light rig for 
 driving in style, usually with a horse kept for the 
 purpose, and boasted of as related, more or less re- 
 
156 
 
 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 motely, to I know not what distinguished family of 
 racers, and in this brave array did our neighbor 
 men gather, to the number of a score, I should say, 
 and proceed with us to the station. They had de- 
 cided among themselves that it would be too bad to 
 leave our women to ride in our heavy, lumbering 
 old wagons, which had not even the merit of being 
 brightly painted, to say nothing of the complete 
 lack of springs, and that it lay upon them to scour 
 up their various carts and carriages, and newly oil 
 their harnesses, and brush their fast horses, while 
 they dressed themselves in their best, and assumed 
 their best air of jollity, and fetched the strangers 
 home. I was something shocked by the candor of 
 rustic wit, at first, but I have long since learned to 
 estimate it aright, and now nothing warms me more. 
 Some of the things said that day, by those good 
 men, in the spirit of levity, would not look well in 
 cold print, and even after the women came, remarks 
 were plentifully let fall which were not in the best 
 taste, according to my then way of thinking, but all 
 the time the good will behind the rude words was 
 plain, and who were we to take offense? 
 
 When the train pulled up, and our party swarmed 
 out, looking fresh and bright for all their long 
 journey, there was a great ado, you may know. 
 We began with attempting to carry the matter off 
 in a sprightly way, with mirth and loud laughter, but 
 the stream of emotion ran too deep for that, and be- 
 fore we knew it, some of the women had begun to 
 cry, and in less time than I am telling it, they were 
 all crying. We men cried, too, in clumsy man fash- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 157 
 
 ion, that is without any right effusion of tears, 
 but with a gulping and choking and hemming and 
 hawing which comes to much the same thing as far 
 as regards making a spectacle of one's self. We 
 learned later that the women had conspired to shout 
 at us in a great chorus and salute us with the various 
 epithets whereby urban humor is wont to cloak 
 its envy of rustic felicity, thinking to have great fun 
 of it, but in the unexpected rush of their feelings 
 they forgot the mischief, which was just as well, 
 for more than likely our neighbors would have taken 
 the allusion to themselves, and felt hurt. 
 
 But a little crying went a great way, and soon 
 we were laughing and chattering, and waving our 
 hats and our handkerchiefs to the people on the 
 train, who had got an inkling of the posture of 
 affairs and were cheering like mad all the while. 
 By degrees, in the confusion, we made out to get 
 the neighbors introduced, those who had not forth- 
 with introduced themselves, and they bore them- 
 selves admirably for all of their being unused to 
 the business. It is true they did not lift their hats, 
 in the town manner, and that seemed odd at the 
 time, but after all they made it clear that they had 
 a proper respect, which is the main object of polite- 
 ness, I should think. Now that I am become a 
 thorough countryman myself, I find myself but 
 little inclined to uncover, as formerly, at the near 
 approach of a woman, although I have lost none of 
 my reverence for the sex, and, furthermore, when I 
 see a man bowing and smirking with his hat in his 
 hand, I feel some distrust of his sincerity. It is 
 
158 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 no great compliment to a woman for a man to act 
 in her presence as an idolater in the presence of 
 his vain idol, and I suspect that if he would but 
 treat her fairly in all things, she would gladly dis- 
 pense him of the forms of adoration. However, in 
 this I lay no claim to having spoken the last word, 
 and I cheerfully record that Elizabeth wholly dis- 
 sents, maintaining that no man can understand what 
 the gloss of chivalry means to a woman, or to what 
 degree the solace of a pretty obeisance may compen- 
 sate the sordid worries of her life. Men are brutes, 
 anyway and always, says Elizabeth, (I believe she 
 would, if cornered, except her father, although 
 another woman might not) and while manners can- 
 not make them any the less brutes a brute with 
 manners is more tolerable than a brute without 
 them. Will you think of the severity of the girl ? 
 
 Knowing nothing of the benevolent intentions of 
 the neighbors, our design had been to convey the 
 women and children home in the wagons and then 
 come back for the trunks and parcels, of which there 
 was such a profusion as might raise some doubt as 
 to our poverty, until you saw the contents, which 
 comprised a few worn clothes and a great many 
 things which association made dear, but which to 
 all practical uses were the merest lumber. But 
 now we had but one trip to make, for the women 
 were whisked off in the fancy rigs, with all the 
 comfort of springs, and of the style, too, for where 
 beats there the truly feminine heart which is not 
 gladdened by display? Of course they took the 
 smallest children with them, but the others who 
 
A Lord of Lands. 159 
 
 were of an age for adventure and anxious, besides, 
 to renew acquaintance with their fathers, remained 
 with us, while we loaded the baggage into the 
 wagons, and came slowly after. The fast horses 
 had to show their paces of course, and they all 
 vanished over the hills in a cloud of dust before we 
 were so much as ready to leave the station, and by 
 the time we reached home, the amenities had pro- 
 gressed so far that the neighbor women were quite 
 tolerably informed as to every baby in our party, 
 how many teeth he had cut, and were rapidly com- 
 ing to a decision as to whether he favored his mother 
 more, or his father. 
 
 And then we sat down to the bountiful repast, 
 and testified our joy anew, though in the good old 
 way that has obtained from the earliest times, for 
 are we not assured that the heroes of Homer always 
 stuffed themselves with food whenever they felt 
 especially lifted up? The new-comers were as hun- 
 gry as wolves, what with all the relief of arriving, 
 and the brisk ride in the open air, after the long 
 subsistence on the dry and monotonous fare of the 
 journey. You will understand that I am speaking 
 now more particularly of Ludovika and our own 
 brood, for the sixteen families were gathered each 
 under its own roof. Were it not that we were quite 
 by ourselves, I cannot be sure that I must not have 
 been ashamed of Ludovika she was that hearty, es- 
 pecially as to the pies, which in their generous depth 
 surpassed anything she had ever seen, even in her 
 dreams, as she freely confessed. But I could easily 
 overlook any lack of fastidiousness, when at last, 
 
i6o A Lord of Lands. 
 
 having eaten her fill, she sank down into the big 
 stuffed chair which she gave me on my first birthday- 
 after we were married, before the manifold blessings 
 of Providence had begun to cramp us for means, 
 and with a look of the most engaging contentment 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " Matthew, it is all so lovely ! Is the country 
 always like this? " 
 
 I was made pretty full in my throat, by this, out 
 of joy, and the general sense of being favored 
 beyond my due, but I put on a merry face, and 
 rallied her briskly, asking her if she imagined the 
 neighbors had undertaken to board us permanently, 
 and then she knit her brows in deep thought, and 
 began to lay plans for the best disposal of the 
 furniture, an affair of some embarrassment, now that 
 we were to have no fewer than seven rooms, not 
 to speak of the great garret above stairs. 
 
 And where were the neighbors the while? Gone, 
 the moment there was no more for them to do, 
 without saying a word to anybody. They had 
 plenty of delicacy, after all, God bless them ! Their 
 ears should have tingled, that day, for never were 
 people more warmly talked about. Over and over 
 again we exclaimed how thankful we should be, 
 for these good friends. We could not believe that 
 they had their like anywhere in the world, or that 
 we were not favored above all mortals, for we had 
 yet to learn how much of the kindliness (not to 
 disparage the people) was a product of the environ- 
 ment. These wonderful new neighbors were not 
 essentially different from the neighbors we had 
 
A Lord of Lands. i 6 i 
 
 known in town where every body was like the priest 
 and the Levite and passed by on the other side, for 
 if these latter had been selfish, it was their environ- 
 ment that made them so. 
 
 All that day we visited and made merry, wander- 
 ing about the places, looking over the fields, schem- 
 ing and scheming endlessly as to what we should 
 do. The air was full of the gay laughter of the 
 women, as they pried into all the arrangements, and 
 it was music to me, for it bore witness to their 
 genuine interest, and with the women interested, 
 the battle was more than half won, I thought. 
 They were deeply guilty of one of the harmless 
 insincerities which help to give their sex its character 
 of pleasing uncertainty, for although they loudly 
 protested that we had done wonders, in our manner 
 of fixing things, and they were quite in despair 
 of being able to effect any the least improvement, 
 even as they spoke, they were pulling everything to 
 pieces and making it over, to everything's vast and 
 evident benefit, I need hardly add. But no man of 
 us was put out, I know. I daresay they all felt 
 as I did, and I was that glad to see the woman 
 taking a real interest, and laying hold of things in 
 a way which showed her heart was in it, I cared not 
 a fig to w^hat extent she chose to undo my handi- 
 work. 
 
 As for the children, they were so wrought up, 
 come night, that they could not sleep, but lay 
 awake and chattered over their new world until I 
 had to go and command them to be quiet, on pain 
 of something severe. 
 II 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Of course we had more to do than play and plan. 
 The sternness of the business was mostly before us, 
 and such a sternness as we wot not of, else I doubt 
 if we should have had the courage to go on. But 
 of this much we were well aware, and spoke of it 
 often by way of keeping ourselves in mind of it, 
 namely, that whereas until now pretty much every- 
 thing had been done for us, henceforth we had 
 everything to do for ourselves. And yet it was 
 entirely right and proper and profitable altogether 
 that we eat and be joyful on that first day, and 
 forget all care if we could, for the remembrance of it 
 abode with us long and was a solace and a help. 
 
 The engaging newness rubbed off fast. The 
 first work which our hands found to do, after we 
 were settled in our homes, was the toilsome work 
 of clearing the land. As compared with the clear- 
 ing of real timber land, where the trees grow 
 thickly, and where a trunk the size of a man's 
 body, than which we had none larger, would be 
 thought small, it was mere sport, but it was irksome 
 enough to quell our spirits, for while we knew 
 what labor was, in a way, we were not at all used 
 to such delving and grubbing as now we had to do. 
 In tlie thought of keeping up our courage, we flew 
 
A Lord of Lands. 163 
 
 at it with an excess of zeal, which was a serious 
 mistake, and we naturally went the wrong way 
 about the work, which made matters worse, and 
 it was only a few hours until every mother's son of 
 us had his fill of it, and was inwardly cursing it, 
 and but for his pride would have thrown down his 
 tools and quit. Can I ever forget our first grub- 
 ing, and what a sore, disgusted lot we were when 
 we dragged ourselves home at night, aching in 
 every bone, our hands worn raw, and our hearts in 
 our boots, or thereabouts? 
 
 But that pride of ours held like a sheet anchor, 
 to assign no better ground to our steadfastness, and 
 we came back to the rack day after day, and 
 presently the cup of bitterness passed from us. We 
 had some sense to profit by our mistakes. In that 
 way we learned to take things easier, and not to 
 let our ambition run away with us. And we learned 
 something of the art, too, by little and little, how 
 to make our efforts count to the utmost. We 
 found, for instance, that nothing was to be gained 
 by sparing the spade. We began with digging as 
 little as possible, in order to reach the roots of the 
 trees, and it was not until we had wasted some 
 considerable energy that we developed the true 
 economy, which lay in a copious removal of earth 
 at the outset, to afford room for chopping to the 
 best advantage. The neighbors, who still kept a 
 kindly eye on us, showed us a profitable trick, which 
 experience would hardly have taught us, and Tucker 
 lent us a heavy chain to carry it out with. This 
 was a matter of hitching the horses to a high part 
 
164 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 of the tree, to pull while we hacked away below, 
 and it saved us nigh half the work, I should say, for 
 it served to break off the roots which were the 
 hardest to get at with an ax. 
 
 Moreover, as we endured, we hardened. The 
 second day, though our hands seemed all but useless 
 with their profusion of smarting blisters, we began 
 to be conscious of the tide of manly strength, 
 setting back from its ebb. This was due, I surmise, 
 to the wonderful deep, sweet sleep which our wear- 
 iness, and the fresh air, and the rural quiet, had 
 brought us, and continued to bring us, night after 
 night, till the heat of summer interposed, with its 
 various disturbing influences. By less and less 
 effort, of a morning, we were able to breakfast 
 cheerily, and get away with song and merriment, 
 and it was not long until there was no affectation 
 about it, any more, the joy came bubbling up of 
 itself. I doubt very much if the average man is 
 capable of loving work for its own sake, although it 
 is certain that he falls into a woeful uneasiness with- 
 out serious employment, but as long as he is poor, 
 he has plenty of reason to love work for what it 
 will bring him, and it all comes to the same thing, 
 at last. He finds happiness in toil, and we found 
 it, even in the bitter toil of clearing up our land. 
 We ate our bread in the sweat of our face, and 
 found it no curse, though the theologians pronounce 
 it such, I am told. 
 
 We cleared the home acres first of all, in order to 
 get the garden truck started betimes, and as fast 
 as we cleared, a small space here and another there. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 165 
 
 the teams came on and plowed it up. The soil, even 
 in its raw state, was of the loamy texture which 
 breaks easily, and once broken had about it little 
 or nothing of the crudity which often makes new 
 land next to useless for a year or two. And the 
 moment there was a sod turned over, the women 
 and children swarmed upon it like feverish, in- 
 dustrious ants, and tilled and planted. This was 
 what they had long been looking forward to, 
 and whetting their appetite for with anticipation, 
 until it was verily a labor of love with them. They 
 went about it elaborately, and dug and poked and 
 turned until they had made the earth very soft and 
 powdery, and they laid down the seeds very tenderly 
 and covered them with the utmost care, all with a 
 view to affording every encouragement to the 
 impulse of germination. They began to look 
 eagerly for results the very next day after the 
 planting, although they had it told them on the best 
 authority that nothing would appear above ground 
 for at least a week. I fancy they w^ere secretly 
 apprehensive of some miracle being wrought in 
 their favor without their being at hand to witness it, 
 and if your adage says truly that a watched pot 
 never boils, and there's any analogy among things, 
 the wonder is that the seeds ever came up at all. 
 The growing of seeds seems a commonplace affair 
 to us, now, but then it was a great and breathless 
 mystery, and when we saw the grains which we had 
 sowed with our own hands springing up and 
 flourishing, we were moved to a species of awe, 
 almost as if we had seen the water turned to 
 
1 66 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 wine at the marriage feast. Only those who have 
 lived to mature years, without ever having con- 
 sciously put a seed in the ground to see it grow, can 
 understand how we were affected. 
 
 We came not far short of beholding a miracle, 
 after all. Summer was a bit late in putting in an 
 appearance, as I say, but a most amazingly efficient 
 summer she was when at last she arrived, approach- 
 ing with no loitering, uncertain steps, with her 
 face half veiled, but rather as a vision of loveliness 
 bursting upon us all at once, radiant with warmth 
 and light. May, until the last week thereof, was 
 sour enough, and sulky, and cold, but about the 
 twentieth day, just when we had finished planting 
 our corn, and were asking ourselves what might 
 be the good of it, with the air all but yielding a 
 frost every night, and the earth scarcely free from 
 the clutches of winter, when there descended upon 
 us a great rush of geniality. The frostiness 
 vanished magically, and now the air hung heavy 
 with moisture, like the air of some hothouse, mak- 
 ing it oppressive enough for human creatures, but 
 affording the plants every element of prosperity. 
 From somewhere about the middle of June until 
 well into July there was a shower every blessed 
 night, or it seemed so, at least. The lightning and 
 the thunder were verily terrific, keeping us awake 
 and in a tense frame of mind with the uncertainty of 
 our coming through alive, and once a great tree 
 which we had left to shade our house was smitten 
 and shivered into matchwood, all of which was 
 by no means pleasant in the time of it. But the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 167 
 
 showers went their way, when their work was done, 
 and morning came duly, with the sky so clear and 
 soft and fresh after its thorough washing, and the 
 good old sun pouring his generous beams down on 
 the soaked and steaming earth, and then you could 
 fancy that the crops fairly rose in jubilation. 
 
 I can tell some tall stories of how things grew 
 that year, stories hard to believe. Among all the 
 variety of our plantations there were some beans 
 of the scarlet runner sort, which yield a fine fruit, 
 but are especially esteemed for their gorgeous 
 blossoms, and their progress astounded us so that 
 we resolved to measure it accurately, in order to 
 be able to tell the story of it with the backing of 
 figures. Between one sunset and the next, we 
 found, by marking the exact points, the tip of a 
 runner advanced between thirteen and fourteen 
 inches, or something over half an inch an hour. We 
 roughly estimated that the vine was traveling, by 
 its own vigor, about as fast as the end of the 
 hour-hand of our clock, and this, when we ob- 
 served it closely, we thought we could see the motion 
 of. It seemed a great wonder, but a greater, I 
 think, was the achievement of the corn. The corn 
 had been coming along grandly, and by the first 
 week in July, although it had been planted rather 
 late, it had got its leaves up to about the height of 
 a man's knees. I can vouch that it was no higher, 
 because when we went out to work in it, we took 
 the precaution to cover the noses of the horses 
 with the muzzles, to keep them from biting off the 
 stalks (the Good Book bids us not to muzzle the ox 
 
1 68 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 that treadeth out the corn, but I suspect that the 
 ox which should be suffered to eat while he was 
 treading out, would leave himself precious little for 
 winter, and an ox is far less ravenous than a 
 horse) but removed the uncomfortable things when 
 we reached the field, in as much as the corn was 
 still too short to make them necessary. The next 
 day, the heat was so intense, and the mugginess 
 was so stifling, we dared not take the beasts out 
 lest they should be prostrated. But on the third 
 day, the conditions being more tolerable, and the 
 weeds pressing for attention, we sallied forth once 
 more, and behold, the corn had risen to the height 
 of our shoulders and was putting out its tassels. 
 Lest you get from these boastings too favorable 
 a notion of our climate, I am going to tell you about 
 another year, and the corn we had. This other 
 year we had a killing frost on the night of July 4, 
 and the corn was cut to the ground as by a scythe. 
 Nothing was to be seen of it except the dry dead 
 leaves fluttering in the wind. We mourned for 
 our crop, thinking it lost, of course, and wondered 
 what we might plant in the place of it, at that late 
 day, which should give us some use of the land. 
 But even as we mourned and wondered, the weather 
 mended, as if its spite were spent with the frost, 
 and we were astonished to see our corn looking up, 
 in a lively way, and a little later it had spread its 
 green banners aloft again, most stoutly, like the 
 brave good plant it is. In the end we harvested 
 a fair yield of corn, only it was near a month later 
 than it should be, and must have fallen a victim 
 
A Lord of Lands. 169 
 
 to the frost after all, only that we had a sunny fall, 
 as if to compensate us for the backward spring. 
 We learned from that experience that corn will 
 stand a great battering, while yet it is young, but 
 let it be touched only lightly, in its later stages, and 
 it is ruined past redemption. 
 
 The heaviest of the wood, as it happened, grew 
 in the middle of our tract, where we had set our 
 homes, and when we had got the garden-plots 
 cleared off, we had the worst of the grubbing 
 done. In the out-fields, as we called them, there 
 were considerable spaces where no trees at all grew, 
 and only now and then a clump of hazel. These we 
 broke up at once, without any regard for the lines 
 which divided one man's land from another's, for 
 the crop was to be common property, anyway, for 
 a year or two, and our wish was to make it as 
 large as possible in the short time we had for 
 getting ready. These fields, as we planted them 
 the first year, were scattered here and there and 
 everywhere, and they were wholly irregular in form, 
 besides, so that there was no getting at their area 
 exactly, but I believe they could not have fallen 
 much short of a hundred acres, all told, which we 
 planted mostly to corn, with occasional patches of 
 water-melons, turnips, beans, potatoes and onions. 
 Sixteen pairs of willing hands made the work move 
 briskly, and the three teams had all they could do 
 to keep up with the plowing, from the time the 
 first furrow was turned until it was too late to 
 plant anything more. The soil, as I have remarked, 
 was soft and friable, and the horses were powerful, 
 
I JO A Lord of Lands. 
 
 willing fellows, and they made out to turn over 
 some six acres a day. The neighbors all declared 
 this a very creditable performance, and in assigning 
 the credit, I should not forget our teamsters, who 
 knew how to get the most out of a horse without 
 injury to him. Where others, who had been farm- 
 ers all their lives, were having constant trouble, in 
 the heavy spring work, with their horses being 
 galled to the point of disability, we had none at all. 
 And how were we living, the while? Not on 
 salt pork and hardtack, by any means, though 
 there are worse things. Before we had been 
 farmers a month we purchased a cow for each 
 family, the best cow to be had, though such was not 
 to be bought for a song. Our cows cost us almost 
 eight hundred dollars, or something like fifty dollars 
 each, but we never begrudged the money, or doubted 
 that it was about the most profitable investment we 
 could make of it. Milk, for such as are fortunate 
 enough to take to it, is the cheapest of all foods, and 
 with a family of growing children, especially, a cow 
 will earn her cost in short order. You will readily 
 understand that the purchase of these cows w^as 
 a business of some delicacy. Of course we knew 
 absolutely nothing of the marks of a good cow, 
 and inasmuch as it was of our good neighbors that 
 we were buying, we were conscious of a prudent 
 hesitancy about taking their advice implicitly. Not 
 to deny their warm neighborliness, or discredit it 
 in the least, we had a feeling, now that we were 
 fairly settled and in a position to take care of our- 
 selves, that it might not estop them from making a 
 
A Lord ot Lands. 171 
 
 thrifty bargain if the opportunity offered. We were 
 in a quandary, in fact, and how the others got out 
 of it, I cannot say, but for us the knot was cut by 
 Ludovika suddenly and without warning fixing her 
 choice upon a slender little heifer, giving it as her 
 sole reason that the creature had the loveliest blue- 
 black eyes, which was true, and the sweetest mouse- 
 colored nose, which was equally true. It was a most 
 uncommon thing for Ludovika to be swayed in so 
 practical a matter by sentimental considerations, 
 and her selection seemed to the last degree hazardous 
 and capricious, but it turned out well. The cow 
 was given the name Dornroeschen, in recognition of 
 her gentleness and wholesomeness (it is a pretty 
 name, as the Germans speak it, though hard enough 
 for me, and I fell into the way of saying Durnrisky, 
 as being a fair approximation, and at the same time 
 not unsuggestive of the facts of the case) and she 
 virtually kept us, the first summer, when the matter 
 of keep was somewhat of an embarrassment, since 
 we had everthing to buy. We learned of our 
 Yankee neighbors how to make a kind of bread 
 they called bannock, which was the simplest of 
 simple things, what with having nothing in it but 
 corn-meal, and a pinch of salt for savor, with enough 
 water for mixing, and was baked thin over a hot 
 fire, until it was all but solid crust through and 
 through. There was a sweetness about it, together 
 with a smack of wholesome substantiality, and we 
 took a great fancy to it. Eaten with milk, out of 
 brown earthen bowls, which seemed, by their 
 homely solidity, to add a charm, it was our chief 
 
172 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 article of diet, and we thought it fit for a king, 
 fitter, indeed, than the bulk of the stuff kings are fed 
 with, if you can believe what you read. Before 
 the season was far along, our garden began to 
 yield its various esculents to furnish our table with 
 variety, first the dandelions which sprang up of 
 themselves, and then following the radishes and the 
 lettuce and the young onions and the peas and the 
 beans and the new potatoes, with our first meal 
 of which we signalized the Fourth of July. If we 
 cared for meat, and the most of us had the notion 
 that a man could not work without meat, though we 
 soon outgrew it, there was salt pork to be had at 
 small expense, out of some neighbor's barrel, and 
 while we had despised all but the most dehcate cuts 
 of swine's flesh, when we dwelt in town, having no 
 stomach for the fatness of it, here our appetites 
 were greatly sharpened by the activity in the open 
 air, and we found it quite to our liking, and candidly 
 set it down as something in favor of life in the 
 country that it rendered a man capable of enjoying 
 the fare which he could best afford. 
 
 When the planting was finished, at length, we 
 relaxed a bit. The land being new, the weeds had 
 not to be fought with early and late, as the necessity 
 is with old land where they have taken firm hold, 
 although they were not by any means to be left to 
 their own courses, especially in view of the extremely 
 forward weather, by w^hich nature seemed more 
 than usually determined to fill up the spaces among 
 our plants, with plants of her own such as she had 
 particularly assigned to that soil. But six of us, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 173 
 
 driving the six horses singly, could manage the 
 weeds leaving ten of us to seek other employment. 
 
 This, by one of the happiest of chances, we found 
 among the farmers of the vicinity, without going 
 far from home. These men had all of them fallen 
 into the error, as I esteem it, of spreading them- 
 selves, as it were, over a great deal of land, with 
 the result that they were chronically short of help 
 in the busy season, and about as chronically short 
 of the means of hiring ordinary hands. They were 
 mightily glad to take advantage of our willingness 
 to be paid in truck, for every farmer had meal in 
 his bin and meat in his barrel, if no money in his 
 purse. We, on our part, had the meat and the 
 meal to buy, anyway, and if we bought it with our 
 labor, at such times as our own affairs did not 
 press for attention, we did thriftily, for by so much 
 we avoided swelling our interest-bearing debt. 
 Pay in kind Is not strictly economical, I daresay, 
 according to the modern theory, but it has its 
 advantages, nevertheless, or had, for us, in those 
 early days. Not to insist upon any great profit in 
 dollars and cents, it was worth something to be 
 improving our relations with our neighbors, con- 
 firming their good will, and, what was most 
 important, learning of them. 
 
 That first corn crop made us proud, I can tell 
 you, when it had grown and ripened under our 
 hands, and swelled us up with quite a definite 
 notion that we were already become tolerably 
 finished farmers. The soil hereabouts, take it year 
 in and year out, is not properly corn soil.. It lacks 
 
174 ^ Lord of Lands. 
 
 the stiffness. The grain we raise and call by the 
 name of corn would provoke a smile down in the 
 corn belt, where the dirt is as black as tar, and 
 about as sticky, with the fatness of it, as I am told, 
 and where the stalks at their height are tall enough 
 to hide a man on horseback. But between the 
 sultry air above and the rotting clods below, our 
 corn was well fed that first year, and throve grandly. 
 The yield was such a mighty store of rich yellow 
 ears that we were in despair of providing safe hous- 
 ing for it. We were advised to sell it off at once and 
 get it out of the way, as the custom was with the 
 other farmers, but we had been hatching plans 
 which contemplated storing the corn, and store it 
 tve did, resorting to all sorts of makeshifts. We had 
 no strict measure of it, but I dare guess there was a 
 matter of between seven and eight thousand baskets 
 of it. Will you think of that, and of us, less than 
 a year out of the city? 
 
 The common practice, which I have just men- 
 tioned, of selling the grain in the raw, to get it 
 out of the way, had the effect, naturally, of making 
 crude corn cheap, while meat, which is only grain 
 in a more advanced state, was rather high. Why it 
 was reserved to us to find a better way, I shall not 
 pretend to say. Possibly our fresh point of view 
 enabled us to see the conditions better, and what 
 they implied and promised, while other farmers, 
 looking out through the dim spectacles of tradition, 
 were as good as blind where innovation was in- 
 volved. But certain it was that we began the busi- 
 ness of turning cheap grain into dear meat, now 
 
A Lord of Lands. 175 
 
 pretty much universal, in these parts. Two heads 
 are better than one, even if one of them is a 
 sheep's head, and better than two heads are 
 sixteen heads, or thirty-two heads, I should say, 
 for we always took counsel of our women, and 
 they were ever apt in suggestion, if not firm in deci- 
 sion. We got our thirty-two heads together as 
 soon as we saw what a great lot of corn we were 
 going to have, and resolved upon a course which 
 seems very obvious, now, but was far from that, 
 then, since it sheered abruptly away from the path 
 of precedent. Who were we to be striking out 
 across untrod fields, in search of a short cut ? 
 
 But while no farmer raised meat to sell, every 
 farmer raised the meat for his own use, and here 
 again circumstances played strongly into our hand. 
 This meat was almost invariably pork, and a part of 
 the equipment of each place was a brood sow, bring- 
 ing up a litter of pigs for her master's barrel. It 
 would have been cheaper for the master to buy 
 young shoats, as many as he needed, but a farmer is 
 affected by inertia fully as strongly as the next 
 man, and what custom has been it will be, more 
 likely than not. If you had taken the trouble to 
 prove to any of our friends, by an appeal to figures, 
 that he would better buy shoats, instead of keeping 
 a brood sow, he would no doubt scratch his head 
 and make answer that there had to be a hog about 
 to eat up the garbage, and never think of departing 
 from the good old way. But we were not quarrel- 
 ing with a custom which was to put money in our 
 pockets. The fact stood, and we were content to 
 
176 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 let it, that every farmer had a brood sow, and that 
 she had a Htter of pigs every year. If the family 
 were large and hearty, they might eat as many as 
 three pigs, and I doubt if the average family ate 
 more than two. But no sow was in the least to 
 be governed in the matter by the needs of the 
 family. Almost always she had more pigs than 
 were called for, usually five or six, sometimes ten, 
 or even fifteen, and once, I remember, a very 
 enterprising mother-hog brought forth nineteen. 
 Of course, with a litter at every place, there was 
 a perfect glut of young shoats, until they were to be 
 had very cheap. We could buy any number of 
 thrifty pigs, six weeks old, for a dollar a head, and 
 we could pay for them with our labor, and it was 
 almost like finding them. We bought and we 
 bought, picking the best, until we had eighty of the 
 briskest, sturdiest little fellows you could ask to 
 see. We had to stop with eighty for the lack of 
 a place to put them. We had plenty to feed them 
 with, but there was a defect of warm shelter. With 
 the bits of board left over after the houses were done, 
 and nondescript lumber fashioned out of the trees we 
 had grubbed up, and straw which we could have in 
 abundance for the trouble of hauling it, we managed 
 to get up a hovel for each family, and that was 
 the best we could do without going to great expense 
 for material, which we shrank from doing, with 
 the outcome still uncertain. We were advised not 
 to attempt to keep more than five hogs in one pen, 
 and so, with the sixteen pens, we were restricted 
 to eighty head, all told. We felt an uneasiness as 
 
A Lord of Lands. 177 
 
 to being able to keep our stock warm the first 
 winter, and yet, with all the vaunted improvements 
 we have made since, I have it to say that we have 
 never succeeded better. A cow is equal to a small 
 stove in the heat she disperses, and hogs will mass 
 themselves together in the snuggest fashion, and 
 provided only they have a dry floor and plenty of 
 litter, there is no fear of their suffering, whatever 
 the cold. 
 
 Those eighty pigs ate a great hole in our store of 
 corn, and waxed broad and fat. We kept them till 
 the month of March, and by that time there was 
 none of them which would not go two hundred- 
 weight, or better. Some, very thrifty, and gifted 
 with an ingenuity for getting the best of everything, 
 w^eiit near three. Sixteen of the largest and best 
 carcasses we kept and salted down for our own eat- 
 ing, and sixteen we kept for breeders, and the rest 
 we hauled to the shambles, in the city. They 
 brought us six hundred and a few odd dollars, and 
 we were satisfied. 
 
 And right here, since I shall have no fitter 
 occasion, I will testify that a hog is not by nature 
 an unclean animal, but very much the contrary. 
 His habits, if he can have his own way, are cleaner 
 than those of any other domestic animal, not even 
 excepting the horse, concerning whose loftiness of 
 character w^e hear much. I have known a hog to 
 carry straw in his mouth, from the wet corner where 
 his careless owner had thrown it, to a dry corner, 
 to make himself a clean bed of it, and I have known 
 a hog to wear his hoofs down to the quick, with 
 
178 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 scratching his scanty litter into a heap that should 
 keep him out of the muck. The five pigs given 
 over to my family and me to raise were all white, 
 with the pink of health glowing delicately through, 
 and we conceived such an admiration for them that 
 we resolved to keep them from becoming soiled, 
 let the trouble be what it might. It proved almost 
 no trouble at all, for we had little more to do than 
 give them a chance, and they kept themselves 
 clean, as if they took a pride in it. When the 
 time came for them to be sold, we went to the 
 length of scrubbing them, with soap and warm 
 water, to the considerable amusement of some, but 
 it came to pass that when those pigs got to market, 
 they fetched the top price, and called forth no 
 end of complimentary remarks by their respectable 
 appearance, and then there was less disposition to 
 make light of our zeal. 
 
 But there was a dark side, though I hesitate to 
 speak of it, lest in a practical generation I fail of the 
 sympathy without which I shall be but hardly under- 
 stood. Among those five pigs of ours, there was a 
 certain barrow rarely endowed with discretion. The 
 children singled him out at once, and made much 
 of him, bestowing upon him the name of Ingomar. 
 Ingomar would follow us about like a dog, and even 
 come into the house, if he was let, quite without 
 impropriety, as it seemed to me, although it gave 
 Ludovika great scandal, and provoked her to iron- 
 ical remarks very foreign to her nature, touching the 
 supposed practices of the Irish. Ingomar could 
 discourse, in his way, and was very fond of it. We 
 
A Lord of Lands. 179 
 
 could never speak to him but he would answer us, 
 and the variety of tone which he had at his com- 
 mand for different occasions was something to 
 wonder at. We, that is, the children and I, found 
 much amusement in imagining to ourselves what 
 the pig had it in mind to say to us. While I have 
 no quarrel with those who deny that beasts think, 
 this much I will make bold to say, knowing it full 
 well, that where a man has a feeling for them, he 
 falls easily into the way of attributing to them a 
 power of thought, and believes he gets to under- 
 stand them. Very likely he is mistaken in this, 
 but at all events it is an innocent fiction, and it serves 
 the not contemptible purpose of making the beasts 
 more interesting and companionable. I looked up- 
 on myself as little better than an assassin, the day 
 we inveigled Ingomar into the wagon, to be carried 
 away to the butcher, especially since I never knew 
 him more sweetly reasonable and accommodating. 
 The girls cried bitterly, and I could have cried, too, 
 I was that penetrated with regret. It is a hard thing 
 to meditate the death of the trustful animal which 
 you taught to believe you his friend, and herein lies 
 the great difficulty of stock-raising, for me, and 
 especially with swine is there the appeal that wins 
 my love. If these are despised, I am sure it is 
 because they are not known for what they really 
 are, but rather for what man's indifference, or 
 worse, has made them. 
 
 I should mention the melons of our first year, for 
 they were notable. The autumn frosts kept their 
 distance until September was well spent, and all 
 
i8o A Lord of Lands. 
 
 the vines ripened their fruit, excepting a few which 
 were sprung from seed sent us, by way of compli- 
 ment, by our member of Congress, or, rather, by 
 the general government at his instigation. We were 
 puffed up by the attention, not knowing how cheap 
 it was, and felt bound to accord those seeds dis- 
 tinguished consideration, which we did by giving 
 them place where the soil was stout, and the sun 
 struck down most favorably. We expected great 
 things of them, and in one respect, at least, we were 
 not disappointed, for the foliage of the plants w^as 
 something prodigious, as large and rank as pump- 
 kin leaves. But they took their time about getting 
 forward. When the other vines were ripening fruit, 
 these w^ere just blossoming, and when at last the 
 frost came and killed them, their melons were only 
 beginning to form. I asked Neighbor Tucker one 
 day how he accounted for this singular outcome, 
 and here is his answer, as nearly as I can recall 
 it: 
 
 " Huh ! Them there's Georgy melons, made to 
 grow where it's summer 'bout all the year round. 
 Them fellers down tew Washin'ton, they don't 
 know a great sight more'n the law 'lows, by Heck. 
 Think of them a-sendin' Georgy watermelons up 
 here where there's frost ev'ry dod-gasted month in 
 the year 'cept July, an' sometimes, b'gosh, in July. 
 They send me their pesky seeds ev'ry year, an' I 
 jest throw 'em in the fire. Wouldn't dare feed 'em 
 to the chickens, for fear of what might be in 'em. 
 Never think o' plantin' of 'em." 
 
 Tucker was not altogether just. The best lettuce 
 
A Lord of Lands. i8i 
 
 we ever raised was from seed sent us by our mem- 
 ber of Congress. 
 
 We ate all the melons we could, and revelled in 
 the luxury of an endless supply of that which we 
 had always deemed almost too good for us, not to 
 speak of the delight of the fresh, crisp flesh instead 
 of the wilted, sodden substance of the cold-storage 
 fruit, but with all our amazing enterprise in that 
 direction, we had melons left, mountains of them, 
 and these, rather than see them rot, we resolved to 
 haul away to the city and sell, for whatever they 
 would fetch. I doubt if we should have made out 
 much, perhaps not enough to repay our trouble, 
 only that we fell in, almost at once, with an artful 
 grocer, who took a fancy to inquire into our cir- 
 cumstances, and hit upon the plan of advertising 
 our melons, with a considerable flourish, as the 
 genuine Fairhope Melons, from the celebrated Fair- 
 hope Farms. This was downright pomposity, to 
 say no worse of it, but it did not hurt the sale of 
 the melons, and we could console our consciences 
 with the assurance that the truly high quality of 
 our goods mitigated the deceit. If the public 
 bought in the belief that the Fairhope Melons were 
 something out of the ordinary, I flatter myself 
 they were not necessarily disabused of that belief 
 by the eating, and if they were, who were they to 
 complain that their simplicity had been taken undue 
 advantage of? 
 
 Our beans and our onions, the former easy to 
 raise but hard to harvest, the latter hard to raise 
 and easy to harvest, these rendered a good account 
 
1 82 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 of themselves, but nothing that could be called 
 brilliant. They sold readily enough, for they are 
 staple articles of food and always in strong demand, 
 but we perceived that they were distinctly of the 
 things which everybody raised, every year, which 
 meant that there was no promise of great profit in 
 them. Novelty was the sign we had to conquer by, 
 and it was encouraging to reflect, in view of the 
 tendency of farmers generally, and especially born 
 farmers, to follow the rut, that novelty was not such 
 a hard thing to achieve, even by people who knew 
 no more of the art of agriculture than we did. 
 
 You w^ill wonder, I daresay, how we got to know 
 enough of the art of agriculture to do even the 
 simple things I have recorded, let alone the more 
 abstruse things we thought of doing, since we began 
 with knowing absolutely nothing. Well, as to that, 
 there were, first and foremost, the thirty-two heads 
 which I have mentioned, each bent on keeping its 
 eyes and ears open, and its brain active, to see, to 
 hear, to bear in mind, all in the humility of conscious 
 ignorance. This realizing sense of our ignorance 
 was by no means the least of our equipment. We 
 knew we had everything to learn and where any 
 fairly bright man knows that much, the rest is com- 
 paratively easy. Whoever has met the farmer of the 
 old school, and observed how much he stood in his 
 own light in virtue of the notion that he knew his 
 business and had nothing to learn, will be able to 
 measure our advantage in this respect. We went 
 to school to anybody and everybody who would 
 deign to teach us, man, woman or child, and there 
 
A Lord of Lands. 183 
 
 was no lack of such. To say our neighbors were 
 glad to show us puts the case but mildly. There 
 was not a farmer within five miles of us, I suppose, 
 who would not drop his own work on the instant 
 to come over and tell us how to do ours. This was 
 partly out of sheer neighborliness, to which all 
 honor, but partly, I think, out of the pride of knowl- 
 edge, to which all honor likewise and to a certain 
 sly delight which wisdom finds in seeing ignorance 
 exposed. Anyway, we got the schooling, more of it, 
 at times, than we well know what to do with, for 
 there sprung up a species of rivalry among the good 
 people, as if they counted it something to be the 
 chosen means of enlightening us, and as no two of 
 them ever agreed about anything, we were embar- 
 rassed. But we soon discovered that whereas our 
 friends differed in doctrine, they were pretty much 
 alike in practice, and, while we listened to what they 
 said, watched attentively what they did. We were 
 not long learning as much about the art of agricul- 
 ture as they knew. For the rest, we had to go to 
 school elsewhere, chiefly to our experience. 
 
 We procured all the publications of all the agri- 
 cultural experiment stations, which were to be had 
 for the asking, and read them faithfully, as far as 
 they touched our concerns, hoping to get something 
 out of them. Nor were we altogether disappointed. 
 But we found them pretty heavily weighted down 
 with science, and by this I do not so much mean hard 
 words as the excessively orderly fashion in which 
 they would have us go about the commonest chores. 
 They were for weighing out a cow's rations, for 
 
184 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 instance. Of course we had no scales for weighing, 
 nor were we Hkely to have, for many years, if ever, 
 and if we had them, I question if their use would 
 compensate the time it would take, and I am will- 
 ing to submit the case to the cow. How to do things 
 with the rude appliances which any farmer can pro- 
 vide, that is the point, rather than how to do them 
 with the perfect appliances which only a wealthy 
 man can command, and if the pamphlets did not 
 miss the point, pretty largely, then I read them 
 wrong. 
 
 " What we want to know," said Parkin, our chief 
 teamster, an eminently practical man, but no scholar, 
 after he had spelled out a fat treatise on how to 
 feed grain, only to find the reward of all his labor to 
 be of the meagerest description, " is how to make 
 an incubator out of a soap-box, and not about the 
 proteids in a pig's swill." 
 
 I cannot help but agree with him. And yet the 
 reading of the bulletins, as they were called, did us 
 no harm, I am sure, unless it was the Vandeventers. 
 They were out of pocket, I know, but perhaps they 
 learned enough to make them good of their loss. 
 
 The Vandeventers were passionately fond of 
 honey. I have wondered, in a whimsical mood, if 
 their forebears may not have been really and truly 
 bears, and their overmastering love of honey derived 
 through all the countless generations that must have 
 intervened. But anyway, they were instantly caught 
 by a certain neat little leaflet which was devoted to 
 the culture of bees, and had the rare distinction, be- 
 sides, of being explicit in all its directions, presum- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 185 
 
 ing no previous knowledge whatever, and of con- 
 descending to the level of persons poorer than a 
 national bank. For my own part, although I was 
 fascinated by the clear account of the wonderful 
 ways of bees, I could not persuade myself that there 
 was any profit in them, and let the suggestion pass. 
 But the Vandeventers saw through their appetite as 
 through a magnifying glass, and there was nothing 
 for them but they would have some bees. They pur- 
 chased two colonies, to begin with, and they flour^ 
 ished, as it appeared. The second year the old 
 swarms divided, and we all turned out to help about 
 getting them hived, making a great frolic of it, 
 besides discovering that swarming bees do sting, 
 contrary to the assurances of authority, and when 
 the flowers of June brought the bees their busy day, 
 there were four colonies hard at work. 
 
 And hereupon the Vandeventers proceeded to 
 have what they had ever longed for, hopelessly, in 
 former days, but now, for some several months, in 
 all the ardor of anticipation, namely, as much honey 
 as they could eat. 
 
 One night, after we had gone to bed and to sleep, 
 there ran a dire rumor through our village. Some- 
 body, his voice so choked with agitation that we 
 knew him not, came pounding on our door, calling 
 us to get up, for the Vandeventers were all dying. 
 It was a fearful message to deliver with such sud- 
 denness, for death was a visitor we had never 
 thought of, and in a pallid panic we hurried into a 
 few clothes, and went running over. We found the 
 house already full of half-dressed neighbors, weep- 
 
1 86 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 ing, wailing and wringing their hands, or otherwise 
 manifesting their great concern. Just as we were 
 coming up to the front gate, a man whose face we 
 could not see, mounted on Prince, the best of the 
 team of old fire-horses, swept past us at a tremen- 
 dous pace, and off across the country in the direction 
 of the nearest doctor's residence, a good ten miles 
 away. I thought with a sinking of the heart how 
 that Prince, for all his fine mettle, must certainly 
 founder before he had covered a mile, at that rate, 
 and then we went in. 
 
 There appeared to be good reason for all the 
 distress, and the word of death flying from lip to 
 lip. The Vandeventers, father, mother, and four 
 children, lay in convulsions, moaning and shrieking 
 w^ith pain, gnashing and frothing frightfully. The 
 first who came to the rescue, attracted by their 
 piteous cries, had found them rolling about the floor, 
 utterly unregardful, in their misery, of the looks of 
 the thing; but as sufficient help arrived they w^ere 
 lifted back into their beds and covered up and held, 
 by main strength, and that was all anybody could 
 see to do, until we appeared on the scene, and it was 
 Ludovika, not I, who saw more. I was wrung wnth 
 pity and terror, and as unhelpful as anybody there, 
 but Ludovika, how shall I describe her calmness and 
 resourcefulness? Without a quaver she went 
 straight up to Vandeventer and asked him what he 
 had been eating. The poor fellow seemed not rightly 
 to understand her, if, indeed, he heard her. My own 
 thought was that he had been stricken with an awful 
 deafness, as by some paralysis. Anyway, his only 
 
A Lord of Lands. 187 
 
 reply was to look up at me, for I had drawn 
 near likewise, and implore me to take the gun 
 which I should find ready loaded in the woodshed 
 and shoot him dead with it. I was shaken as a reed 
 by the wind, but Ludovika, quite undisturbed by the 
 man's gruesome entreaties, turned and put her 
 question to the woman, and from her she managed 
 to elicit, along with a great deal of inarticulate 
 gibbering, the information that they, the whole 
 family of them, had eaten almost nothing but honey 
 for the last three meals, honey for breakfast, honey 
 for dinner, and honey for supper, all they could 
 swallow. Ludovika remarked, briefly, that she had 
 thought as much, and proceeded to rise to the 
 occasion, grandly. 
 
 " Give them milk ! " she commanded, with such 
 an air of authority as dazed me, and I doubt not 
 greatly startled the others, since none of them had 
 ever heard anything of the sort from that quarter 
 before. But a dozen sprang instantly to obey, glad 
 enough to have some confident suggestion to act on, 
 where hitherto there had appeared to be nothing 
 to do but stand by and see six human beings perish 
 most miserably. 
 
 And when the milk was given, the effect was 
 magical. In a moment the sick ones were out of 
 their pain, pretty weak yet by reason of their furious 
 struggling, but on the whole apparently none the 
 worse. We left them looking very foolish, and 
 apprehensive, withal, as if they expected never to 
 hear the last of it. 
 
 Ludovika, with the modesty that is her character, 
 
1 88 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 arrogated nothing to herself, when I, not a little 
 awed, asked her, on our way home, how she knew 
 that milk was the right thing. 
 
 " It's in the Bible," said she, simply. " The land 
 of promise flowed with milk and honey, did it not? 
 Well, that was no accident, but a wise provision. 
 If the land had flowed with honey alone, as some 
 would have it, the children of Israel must have died 
 of the colic, and there would have been an end 
 of everything. We always drank milk when we 
 ate honey, when I was a child. I thought every- 
 body knew about it." 
 
 In the early morning hours, the doctor came, in 
 a lather of sweat. He laughed when he heard the 
 story, and charged the Vandeventers ten dollars, or 
 at the rate of a dollar for every mile he had traveled, 
 which was no doubt his due, although it was 
 Ludovika who had cured them. Perhaps it was 
 only just that they should be mulcted for their folly, 
 and the needless scare they gave us. Anyway, they 
 could not complain. As for my good wife, she 
 might have set up for a doctor herself, after that, 
 such a faith in her did the neighbors derive from the 
 incident. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 In the face of all our prosperity, though the new 
 life we had found here was in every respect, whether 
 as regards body or spirit, and not only in its 
 rich promise of blessings yet to come, but as well 
 in the blessings already vouchsafed, far and away 
 a better life than we had ever lived before, will you 
 believe that we all fell desperately homesick, and 
 that homesickness it was which brought our enter- 
 prise nearest to failure? Was it not a disgraceful 
 thing, and a great reproach to our manhood, that 
 the most formidable obstacle we encountered should 
 arise not out of exterior circumstances at all, but 
 out of our own pitiful weakness? It seems an 
 amazing, incredible experience, as I call it to mind, 
 but there is no denying the fact. In that bountiful 
 year, with nature all about us singing her fullest 
 chorus of joy, with the helping hand of mankind 
 held out to us from every side, our hearts answered 
 but feebly, at best, and more often they answered 
 not at all, but were sullen and sour and silent. 
 
 I have often wondered, within myself, what if 
 our first year had chanced to be, instead of the 
 fruitful year it was, with everything coming to our 
 hand as by enchantment, one of the years of bitter 
 trial which awaited us? Should we have stood it? 
 
190 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 Sometimes, as I think of our blubbering weakness, 
 I am inclined to the belief that nothing saved us 
 but the fate which cast our lines in pleasant places, 
 and then again, I cannot say, after all, but a touch 
 of the heavy hand might have served to tone up the 
 flabby fiber of our courage, and to marshal to our 
 support, if nothing better, the obstinacy of the brute 
 which will not be driven. Certain it is there were 
 times when but very little was lacking to make us 
 quit all the good hope and go sneaking back to the 
 old dismal drudgery and despair, and that little was 
 oftener withheld by luck, if such a thing there be, 
 than by any virtue in us. 
 
 Until that day I never knew in the least what 
 homesickness was like. I had heard tell of it, to be 
 sure, but I took it for one of the ills of childhood, 
 like measles or scarlet fever, something which never 
 attacked grown men and women except as they 
 were like children, weak and foolish. In fact, I 
 doubt, now I think of it, if I ascribed to homesickness 
 even so much dignity as to class it with the diseases 
 at all, any more than lovesickness, but rather viewed 
 it as a figment of the fancy, utterly unworthy of 
 the mature and balanced mind. Perhaps I was not 
 mistaken in my lofty disdain, but rather in never 
 suspecting myself of being, like children, weak and 
 foolish, and in my mind none too maturely balanced. 
 At all events, I soon found that this thing, whether 
 fact or fancy, lay upon me most heavily, and that it 
 was not to be driven away by any force of will I 
 could muster, or cured by any arts at my command. 
 I was prostrate in spirit, with no power to rise, 
 
A Lord of Lands. ^9^ 
 
 Ip..! and whimpered and ''^'"'"[""itZ. 
 .elves with »»'« ignominy 11»" "< '''»" '"' 
 
 ""tE. disorder s.oie ..,». "S in *« «f' «f Jit 
 
 1 i.arl lie; heforc wc kncw what the mauer 
 ""' "Even a"tert had put out its more marked 
 :7mptomrant4s constLly making itseU mam- 
 X /-^ r. r bearine we failed to identify it. As 
 S n'"asTe L^ourselves and one another tester 
 and touchier than we should be, we laid it to the 
 
 :toy weather which, however grateful to the plant . 
 tot to be very trying indeed to us. especially as i 
 ^CconJnued throughout the night, and nigh 
 a er night, for then it banished sleep from ou 
 
 evelds or suffered us to snatch only a wink o. 
 
 ^o of unrefreshing doze, not to "'en 'O" ^hj 
 
 .,.»= ,vV,irh it bred in countless millions to 
 
 "«""„: T i h' we..he, was en.ngh » p.. 
 
 To., of sorts, b!. there was so^fl^'l^^, 
 
 ?: f ::i"rortr.:»trrtrro 
 
 ; ith or pri..ti.ns. and h, ;>»>„™,J',,''- 
 
 -rsr*:rr:a"i.h:^'rernsh- 
 
192 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 ing upon us, almost irresistibly, the impulse to stop 
 right there and then, drop everything, and go back. 
 We were homesick, and now we knew it. There 
 was a trifling struggle against it, at first, and then 
 we all gave up, and let it run. 
 
 The men had it worst. I hang my head to con- 
 fess it, but less I cannot confess and be just. The 
 women, for all that we had looked forward to 
 their being hard beset with the longing for the old 
 scenes and surroundings, and, taking prudent 
 thought of their poor frailty, had guarded especially 
 against it, now that the hour of trial was come, 
 they were more steadfast than ourselves. Their 
 strength of resolution held us more than once. 
 Every now and then the men would cry out that it 
 was unbearable, that they would rather be dead than 
 suffer so, and they would even take the first steps 
 toward departure, but the women never sank that 
 low. Always, in the extremity, they drew back. 
 Is it that a woman takes suffering as her necessary 
 portion, and has thus a strength in the face of trial 
 which men know nothing of? Or is she by her na- 
 ture more heroic, though less blustering? But even 
 though I credit our women with all the great 
 quaHties of mind and heart, I have yet to say that 
 our salvation was not wrought wholly by them. 
 For there were the children. These, excepting Richy 
 and a few of the older ones, escaped the infection 
 entirely. The little child is nearer nature, and finds 
 his best contentment in the simple delights which are 
 of nature's own providing, and we could not help 
 but see, any of us, and the women, of course, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 193 
 
 especially, that it would go mightily against the 
 babies to be taken back to the town, after their deep 
 taste of rural life. A father is only a father, after 
 all, and even so tender a consideration might not 
 have held the men, but a mother has no greater joy 
 than in giving up to her children. So the children 
 held the women, I surmise, and the men had to 
 submit and do what was best for them in spite of 
 themselves. 
 
 To be sure w^e rallied, now and again. I can 
 testify, sincerely, that I put forth my best efforts to 
 shake the black dog off my back, although, when 
 I add that I failed in every instance, it does not seem 
 possible. It is hard to believe, as I have already 
 said, that a man in possession of all his faculties and 
 in perfect bodily health, can be utterly conquered 
 and cowed in such a way, but it is only too true. I 
 brought my reason into play and pushed it to the 
 utmost of its capacity, not the smallest, I flatter 
 myself, in a practical matter, however deficient as 
 regards the finer abstractions, yet nothing came of 
 it, for as often as I persuaded myself into some 
 measure of resignation, one thing or another would 
 come up to stir my feelings anew, and before the 
 floods pouring out of my heart, the feeble works 
 which my head had built were like sand dykes be- 
 fore the lashing ocean. Sometimes it was no more 
 than a flash of a dream that cut the ground 
 from under my feet, sometimes it was a chance 
 word dropped by one of the family, thought- 
 lessly; but most often and most powerfully, I think 
 it was the smell of the coal-smoke from the rail- 
 13 
 
194 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 road. I had worked for years where locomotives 
 were going and coming all the time, throwing off 
 the pungent reek of coal with every plunge of their 
 pistons, until the air hung always heavy with it, and 
 long custom made it, insensibly, a part of my 
 atmosphere. To such a degree was this true that 
 the pure air out here seemed defective to me, from 
 the first, but I never minded much until after the 
 homesickness had taken firm hold of me, and then, 
 one day, when I was working in the clearing, striv- 
 ing by close engagement with outward labor to for- 
 get the woe within, it caught me. A freight train 
 passed, tossing out great clouds of black smoke as it 
 toiled over the swells, and in a moment the stiff 
 southeast gale brought the old smell to me. It all 
 but took my sense away, like the whifT of a potent 
 drug. There was no man very near me at the time, 
 I am glad to say, and no man saw me throw down 
 my tools, or heard me cry out that I would go back 
 before I was a day older. I am glad, because it was 
 a shameful thing, and, still more, because I know 
 not what the effect of it might have been on the 
 others, just at that time. I reflected that there 
 would be no train until the next day, and I thought 
 of walking as far as the city, thus to gain a few 
 hours. I reflected that my wife and children would 
 have to wait for the train and would expect me to 
 wait with them, and I broke down and wept for 
 vexation. That will give you some notion of how 
 hard hit I was. I did not weep long, nor did I 
 long give myself up so seriously to the purpose of 
 going back. But all the time it was a hard fight. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 195 
 
 with the issue trembling in the balance. I fixed 
 my thoughts on the things which had made me 
 discontented with the old life, and you cannot 
 imagine how trivial they seemed to me. I groped 
 about in my memory for that line of subsistence 
 which had terrified me so, and do you know I could 
 come to no conclusion so easily as that I had been 
 a great booby, to be frightened by shadows? My 
 thoughts would not stay where I put them. They 
 would stray off, and linger with the great crews of 
 rollicking, jolly fellows, working at a species of 
 play down in the switch-yards, with a foreman to 
 take all the worry, and so I fought the fight over 
 and over, day after day, as often as there was a 
 southeast wind to blow me the smell of the coal- 
 smoke. 
 
 All the while there hung over us the great danger 
 
 that we should fall out with one another, in our 
 
 downheartedness, and a strife get itself engendered 
 
 such as should lead to the worst. It is perhaps the 
 
 greatest wonder of all that we got clear of this 
 
 danger. I cannot describe the situation better than 
 
 by saying that we had conceived a sort of spite 
 
 against one another, as if each blamed the other for 
 
 having got him into a bad way, and I have reason 
 
 to suspect, though happily I was not fully alive 
 
 to it at the time, that there was an especial spite 
 
 against me, by which I do not at all mean a settled, 
 
 cherished grudge, but a touchiness which waited 
 
 only for the apt occasion to flame into resentment. 
 
 But I had sufficient insight of the emergency to 
 
 feel the obligation it laid upon me, and the weakest 
 
196 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 and unworthiest of men will rise, more or less, to 
 his responsibilities. It was not that I cared a great 
 deal about the preservation of the colony any more, 
 such was my own dejection, but at my lowest ebb 
 of glumness I was conscious of a strong wish to 
 keep the peace intact. I put a curb on my peevish- 
 ness which while it was far enough from what it 
 should be, was nevertheless not in vain, I know. 
 More times than a few was I assailed with a sudden 
 gust of angry words, which fell but little if any- 
 thing short of being taunts, and I tell you the gorge 
 rose in me, after a very human fashion, but I 
 crushed it down again, and gave back the soft 
 answer which disarms wrath, always but once, 
 and that once no vital harm came of it, for it 
 was not one of ourselves I flew out at, but 
 Tucker. I fear I vented more wrath on Tucker 
 that day than I should if I had not been storing 
 up, as it were, the wrath which others had pro- 
 voked me to, and which came gushing out, now 
 that the opening offered, in spite of me. But 
 1 was immensely ashamed of myself, right away, 
 and begged his pardon on the spot, in the humblest 
 terms, and he gave it, very graciously. We are 
 good friends, Tucker and I. He is an old, old man, 
 now, and I know he has forgiven me, for I have 
 heard him say, within a few days past, that he 
 long since forgave everybody. 
 
 There were consolations. Be well assured of 
 that. Every cloud has its silver lining, and ours 
 was no exception, I believe. At any rate it was not, 
 so far as it concerned me. I have to speak mostly 
 
A Lord of Lands. 197 
 
 of my own experience, for I have ever felt a delicacy 
 about asking the others as to theirs, the v^^hole busi- 
 ness being confessedly such that it v^ere better for- 
 gotten. But hov^ever rightly we are ashamed of 
 it, and heartily, it remains a great fact in our 
 history, and not to be left out of a truthful account, 
 and so I come to the consolations. In particular. 
 I mind the fair mornings, what a blessing they were 
 to me, when the sun shone brightly, but without the 
 fierceness of the noontide, and the sky had all the 
 tender aspect of having just waked from refreshing 
 sleep, with a face as sweet to look upon as the face 
 of a little child new washed, and the soft air lay 
 still upon the moist earth, and the grass dripping 
 with dew, or the lingering drops of the night 
 shower. Out into the midst of these lovely things 
 I used to go alone, except for Pal, our dog, whom 
 1 was more than pleased to have along by reason of 
 his joy setting me a worthy pattern, and gather 
 courage for the day. Here there was none of the 
 aspect of sadness for me to look upon. All was 
 instinct with life, and all life was glad. There was 
 no holding out in gloom against such a conspiracy 
 of glee, and before I knew it, I was lifted up out 
 of the shadows into the light. 
 
 Never, while I live and have my senses, shall I 
 hear the song of the meadow lark without thinking 
 of those mornings of solace long ago, or without 
 feeling something of the magical uplift which it, 
 almost more than any other circumstance, gave me 
 in that hour of my great need. There is many a 
 fine singer among our birds, and every man will 
 
198 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 have his own taste but to my notion, the meadow 
 lark is first and foremost. One naturahst, whose 
 book I have read, says of the meadow lark's song 
 that it is so sweet it smacks of affectation, and that 
 may hurt it for the delicate ears of some, but for 
 my part I am troubled with no suspicion of affecta- 
 tion on the part of the birds. The meadow lark 
 sings a real song, not a cry or a whistle, but a 
 melody, full of feeling. Nor does he seem to me 
 to sing the same, always, as most bird songsters do, 
 but rather to vary his witching cadences^ improvis- 
 ing, as if in answer to his changing moods, in a 
 manner no less than opulent. I call him a coior- 
 atur singer, with diffidence, because I cannot be 
 sure that I know the real meaning of the term, and 
 even Elizabeth confesses that it somewhat eludes her 
 likewise, being of such a technical character. At 
 all events he deserves as good an adjective as there 
 is in the dictionary. 
 
 But after all, the effect would be pretty thin with 
 no birds to sing except meadow larks. Never was 
 the use of the chorus better illustrated. Every 
 voice had its part, even to the harsh twittering of 
 the English sparrows. Not one could be spared 
 and have the wondrous concert right. There were 
 the blackbirds, especially, a vague designation, 
 inasmuch as there are a thousand different kinds 
 of blackbirds, I daresay, which gathered in flocks 
 in the tops of the highest trees, uttering each his 
 monotonous, plain little lay, in greeting to the re- 
 turning sun. They were like a great choir rendering 
 a chant. Sometimes, after an uncommonly bad 
 
A Lord o( Lands. 199 
 
 night, I would rise very early, as day was breaking, 
 perhaps, and then the music of the birds had still 
 another charm, with the singers just waking, and 
 piping up softly and uncertainly here and there, as 
 if consulting among themselves whether or not it 
 was really time to be up, but getting steadily surer 
 of their ground, and pouring out their congratula- 
 tions more and more volubly, until as the sun swept 
 grandly up, in his regal splendor, from behind the 
 hills, and there came billowing over the earth the 
 flood of his red warmth, a perfect torrent of melody 
 burst out, and for the moment it was as if I had 
 never known what sadness was. 
 
 Nor should I omit from the catalogue of my 
 consolations the demure little turtle-dove, though 
 she was no singer, who had her nest in the low 
 crotch of a tree, only a step or two from the house, 
 where my good fortune discovered her to me one 
 morning, as she sat hatching her eggs with motherly 
 constancy. It seems a little thing, but who can 
 say what pound turns the scale? Only the good 
 Lord who marks the sparrow's fall knows how 
 much this humble bird and her nesting there had to 
 do with my salvation. The turtle-dove is about the 
 timidest of all creatures, but the maternal instinct 
 will overcome every other sentiment, even fear, 
 and sitting over her eggs my lovely friend would let 
 me come up and look her in the face, with never an 
 impulse to fly away, and I have not the words to 
 tell you how sweet and pretty she was, in my eyes. 
 I fell desperately in love with her, which her hus- 
 band seemed to get some notion of, for he shunned 
 
200 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 me, and fluttered about uneasily, and from a distance 
 complained of me, whenever I came near the nest. 
 It was no very safe place for her to be sitting, and 
 defying all danger, and I made it my business to 
 keep watch over her. Once I came up just in time 
 to see Blisko, our stately Maltese, looking hard at 
 that very tree and lashing his tail in a manner to 
 betray malignant purposes, and I promptly cuffed 
 his ears, though he was a good friend of mine, too. 
 Whether he meditated evil of a specific nature, or 
 was only thinking of prey in a general way, I 
 cannot say, but it was better to be sure than sorry, 
 and I more than suspect that my interposition was 
 not untimely. Anyway, the old dove was not 
 molested, and she hatched her two little squabs, 
 and brought them up in the way they should go, and 
 when the business was done to their satisfaction, 
 they all flew away, and while I daresay they re- 
 mained in the vicinity, I had no way of identifying 
 them, or of giving them further proof of my 
 gratitude for the comfort they afforded me. 
 
 The varieties of birds to be seen and heard here- 
 abouts are countless, or seem so, to my rude, 
 unscientific observation, but I have an interest in 
 them all, and love nothing better than to discriminate 
 them, and name them with their common names. 
 Herein, let me say, I differ from Ludovika, who 
 recognizes but three sorts of birds, namely, big 
 birds, little birds, and hawks. She has come to 
 single out hawks with some particularity for the 
 reason that they threaten the welfare of her 
 chickens, and thus constitute themselves an object 
 
A Lord of Lands. 201 
 
 within her horizon, otherwise I doubt if she would 
 know a hawk from a crow, or even from the 
 proverbial handsaw, with the wind southerly. But 
 she will not admit that I have any the advantage 
 of her. 
 
 " A child," says she, " gets more enjoyment out 
 of nature than anybody, and do you find him stop- 
 ping to pry into the why and the wherefore? Don't 
 tell me that the fun is all in pulling nature to 
 pieces to see what she is made of." 
 
 Time was when I scoffed at this view, but now 
 I am not so sure. I am not so sure but we minute 
 observers miss the thrill of broad, unconscious 
 impressions, with but a poor compensation in the 
 satisfaction of puzzling out some mystery. But 
 if you are made with that bent, Avhat are you going 
 to do about it? 
 
 About always, on those morning excursions of 
 ours, Pal would make out to involve himself in 
 some diverting adventure. He was a dog of 
 mixed lineage, a circumstance which, as far as I 
 have been able to discover in a long and intimate 
 and sympathetic association with dogs, adds to rather 
 than detracts from the breadth of their understand- 
 ing. He had a passion for digging after the little 
 ground squirrels, and I could not wonder at that, for 
 there is a volume of defiance and challenge in their 
 loud whistling as they scuttle off into their holes. 
 Never to my knowledge did he overtake one, as 
 was only to be expected, since he had, or thought 
 he had, to scoop out a hole two feet broad for him- 
 self, whereas the squirrel could escape through a 
 
2oa A Lord of Lands. 
 
 tunnel less than two inches wide, but his ardor 
 abated not for that. Possibly, for all his intelligence, 
 he had not the faculty of comparing the paucity of 
 results with the wealth of effort, or it might be, 
 and to this view I am rather inclined, he had a 
 wisdom above man's, and knew, in his doggish way, 
 that happiness lies more in pursuit than in the 
 attainment, in the anticipation more than the pos- 
 session. Once upon a time, we came suddenly 
 across a skunk, just returning to his burrow after a 
 night of it, digging for beetles in the sod or perhaps 
 raiding somebody's chicken-coops, and Pal, with 
 a gallantry which we had reason presently to repent, 
 sprang on him and laid him dead with a shake, but 
 not until the animal had wreaked a signal vengeance 
 on the both of us. We fetched home with us such 
 an odor that even homesickness was for the time 
 being forgotten in the powder and pungency of 
 the new sensation. I had to bury my clothes to 
 freshen them, and Pal w^as banished from near 
 association with human kind for a number of weeks, 
 very much to his chagrin. My heart warms as I 
 think of Pal, what a dear good fellow he was, and 
 the unselfish love he bore us all, how deserving 
 it is of a tribute. It was his peculiarity, and by it 
 he added his bit to the gaiety of nations, that he 
 could not bark without pointing his nose straight up, 
 and his utterance was much assisted if he raised 
 himself an inch or so off his fore feet with each 
 ejaculation. This, I am told, is the mark of good 
 Highland descent among dogs, a sign of genuine 
 collie blood. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 203 
 
 Elizabeth accuses me of rambling, and I plead 
 guilty. But will you not forgive me, when I tell 
 you it is hard for me to choose among these 
 memories flooding over me, to say that some shall 
 go in and become matters of history, while others 
 shall stay out and be forgotten. 
 
 The human nature is variously weak, and you can 
 never foretell what circumstance will fortify it. If 
 a prophet had assured us beforehand that we should 
 be cured of our homesickness only when one of us 
 had definitely succumbed to it, his word would have 
 been as scantily believed as word of prophet ever 
 was. Yet so it turned out. 
 
 The sacrifice, for such he might be considered, 
 the scapegoat who went back into the wilderness 
 vvith the sin of our weakness on his head, was 
 Brown, the barber. He held out till late in the fall, 
 against the common affliction, and then he gave in. 
 We were come now to the season of comparative 
 idleness, and that had its depressing effect. More- 
 over, there had been a flurry of snow, enough to 
 vx^hiten the ground and lay the aspect of wintry 
 loneliness and desolation over the landscape, as if 
 nature had gone ofT to bed, leaving us men to our 
 own poor company and all the while there was not 
 to be put away the thought of the town, wide awake 
 and fuller of sparkling life than ever, with the 
 Christmas season drawing on. It was mighty near 
 being too much for all of us, and it was quite too 
 much for Brown. Late one gray afternoon (we 
 had had no glimpse of the sun for three or four days, 
 and this may well have been the straw which broke 
 
204 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 the camel's back) he made a sorrowful round of all 
 the houses and told us he was resolved to go back, 
 come what might of it, and he cried like a baby, 
 partly out of relief at having the suspense over with, 
 and partly, to do him justice, out of a lingering 
 wish to stay with us. He confessed that he had 
 been writing to friends in the east, bemoaning his 
 sad situation, and they had taken pity on him, and 
 bestirred themselves to find somebody willing to 
 purchase his place in the colony, and pay him 
 enough for it to convey him back to his old home. 
 Somebody had been found, and he had sold his 
 birthright for seventy-five dollars, a mess of pottage 
 indeed. 
 
 When Brown came to our house, last of all, as 
 if he had a reluctance about telling me, it was 
 bedtime, and I could do nothing that night, even if 
 I had known anything to do, which I did not, fur- 
 ther than to stew and fret, wondering what next, 
 for now that there was a break in our ranks, the 
 battle took on a very different look. Would not 
 others be thrown into a panic by Brown's defection, 
 and follow him, though they knew he was leading 
 them to destruction? All summer long we had 
 trembled on the verge of flight, and now one of us 
 had taken to his heels and was running away. If an 
 army will break in battle, and brave men follow after 
 cowards in headlong retreat, what better was to hap- 
 pen us? All night the thought lay upon me, and I 
 sweated in agony, for, behold, I was no longer home- 
 sick. It seemed to me now that I would die in my 
 tracks before I would go back. Happen what might, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 205 
 
 I, at least, would never go back, I vowed to myself, 
 with a clenching of the fists and a setting of the 
 jaws. But what was I to do if all the rest went 
 flocking after Brown ? Who was to pay the money 
 we had borrowed? Could I do it alone? And if 
 it were not paid back, what would Jones Baring 
 think of me? I tried to persuade myself that others 
 would be found glad to take the places of all who 
 might desert, just as somebody had been found 
 to take Brown's place, but I could not be blind 
 if I would. To supply the defection of one 
 member, with the rest standing firm, was a vastly 
 easier thing than to supply a general defection 
 which should in itself advertise the project a failure. 
 When morning came, a dull, late morning, with 
 leaden clouds filling the sky like trappings of mourn- 
 ing, it found me pretty much beat out. Never once 
 did it enter my head that the others might have 
 been affected as I was, and likewise cured of their 
 homesickness, never once until I went out among 
 them, in fear and trembling, leaving my breakfast 
 untasted, by which you will know how anxious and 
 wrought up I was. I was prepared to entreat 
 them, to promise, to go down on my knees, but 
 none of these had I to do. I was back home, in 
 less than half an hour, attacking my breakfast 
 with the utmost zest, though it was none the 
 better for having waited, for now my heart was 
 at ease once more and my stomach free to assert 
 itself. I had not seen tliem all, by any means, but I 
 had seen enough to be assured that we were safe, and 
 that Brown's break, far from leading to the dreadful 
 
2o6 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 consequences I had feared, had saved us. It ex- 
 hibited our common weakness carried out to its 
 last fooHsh phase, and we were heartily ashamed 
 of ourselves. Nobody had the faintest wish or 
 inclination to follow him. Everybody had been 
 troubled with the very anxiety which had assailed 
 me, and kept me stewing and fretting all night. 
 A great light had descended upon us, and dis- 
 covered us to ourselves, how that we wished 
 above all things not to go back, and the possi- 
 bility that we might be forced to go back, present 
 to the minds of all until we had come together 
 in the morning and found how we stood, was 
 ugly enough. For my own part, I shouted like 
 a glad schoolboy, as I sat at my breakfast, telling 
 Ludovika about it, and whereas I had felt a 
 resentment toward Brown, as if he had done me 
 an injury, I had nothing but pity for him at 
 last. 
 
 He was an object of pity, indeed, poor fellow, and 
 we all felt sorry for him, especially the day he 
 left. The complete revulsion of feeling which his 
 surrender had brought about in the rest of us, 
 found a feeble reflection in himself, and he was 
 very wretched and uncertain, though he had made 
 his bed, as it were, and there was nothing to do 
 but lie in it. I hope he found better days, but I 
 fear not. It is perhaps the saddest of all thoughts, 
 to me, that some men are born to be forever 
 prostrate, elected to a species of destruction, and 
 nothing will save them. May God grant them in 
 
A Lord of Lands. 207 
 
 another world the place of light, refreshment and 
 peace which they can never know in this. 
 
 Of course I had not forgotten what Jones Baring 
 said about this unfortunate man, though knowing 
 nothing of him further than that he was descended 
 from many generations of native stock, yet was 
 very poor, and now I saw it in a different light. 
 Thoroughbred cattle may be the best, as some con- 
 tend, but thoroughbred people, by which I mean 
 people whose blood is all derived from one race, are 
 another matter. If people were being bred for some 
 particular trait, as Jerseys are bred for milk and 
 Durhams for meat, it would be right to keep the 
 strains unmixed, but inasmuch as we seek rather a 
 balance of many traits, what is more likely than 
 that a pretty free mingling of the races is necessary 
 to the best results? 
 
 Because I am deeply convinced on this point, and 
 am willing to justify myself, I am going to turn 
 aside, just here, to introduce you to a certain family 
 of three brothers, all of whom live within a day's 
 journey of our village. They are Canadian French, 
 of the purest extraction, born in Quebec, where, in 
 virtue of traditional animosities, there has been no 
 intermarrying with other nationalities for centuries. 
 No people are without their faults, and I mean no 
 disrespect when I say that the Canadian French, as 
 I have found them, while a most kindly race, gay, 
 sweet of temper, hospitable and generous, have 
 none the less a strong tendency to be unthrifty, 
 intemperate and indolent. These three brothers are 
 quite of their kind. 
 
2o8 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 Now it came to pass that the oldest of them 
 married a Yankee girl, who is herself a thorough- 
 bred. Her family boasts of having descended from 
 Roger Williams, and they have a fine old Bible to 
 prove it, but for all that, they are of the sort of 
 farmers who are content to raise more weeds than 
 grain. In fine, here are parents who are nothing 
 to brag of, at best, but behold, they have raised up 
 a great family of children who are remarkable for 
 their enterprise and energy and integrity, worthy 
 men and women all of them. 
 
 The third brother has done well, too. His 
 children are considerably younger, and have them- 
 selves to prove finally, but they are a likely lot, as 
 everybody admits. And who and what is his wife? 
 A German girl, whom he engaged to marry sight 
 unseen, before she had left the old country, and 
 who looked an indifferent bargain when she arrived, 
 being none too bright, if the truth is to be told. 
 
 But the second brother espoused a damsel of 
 his own race. Gabrielle, her name, and I knew 
 her well, for she was Mrs. Tucker's hired girl for 
 some time prior to her marriage. She was 
 sprightly and pretty, her suitors were numberless, 
 and when she bestowed her hand at last, the man 
 she chose was looked upon as uncommon lucky. 
 But she has made him the father of a brood of 
 v/orthless sons and daughters, too lazy and too stu- 
 pid even to learn to read, and that, I should say, is 
 about the limit of failure, with a good school at 
 every man's door. 
 
 It shows what crossing will do, if I am any 
 
A Lord of Lands. 209 
 
 judge of the weight of evidence, although I do 
 not deny that many other elements enter, a great 
 part of which we can know nothing of. Jones 
 Baring's cross of Irish and German stocks is no 
 doubt excellent, but there are others just as good, 
 as witness the Frenchman with the Yankee wife, 
 or the Frenchman with the German wife. Is it 
 not a great comfort to consider how the petered-out 
 thoroughbreds of all the races are pouring into our 
 great country, to renew themselves by this process, 
 so wonderful, yet so simple and commonplace? 
 
 It is such a great comfort to me, and inspiration, 
 that I cannot forego a short flight on the wings of 
 fancy. 
 
 The real American (such is my belief), the 
 American of history as it will be written a thousand 
 years hence, is not yet born. He is in the making, 
 and we are all of us helping to make him. Just 
 now our population is like a great hodge-podge of 
 many ingredients thrown together in a caldron, 
 boiling and boiling, with the scum all the time rising 
 to the top and floating off, and all the time a residue 
 of solid good collecting at the bottom, to form some 
 day the finest race of mankind that has ever trod the 
 earth. This I am sure of, because, so far as I am 
 able to learn, the powers that rule human destinies 
 have never before assembled such a vast profusion 
 of material from which to forge a new race. So 
 I say, let them come, many men of many kinds, 
 each with his measure of good, be it more or less, 
 to add to the great sum of good which our American 
 shall have in him. If some temporary incon- 
 14 
 
2IO A Lord of Lands. 
 
 venience comes of it, what could be more patriotic 
 than to endure it patiently, in view of what is to be 
 gained by it? 
 
 But Elizabeth will have it that you are more 
 concerned with what I have done than with what I 
 think, and I daresay she is right. At all events I 
 am disposed to come back to earth. 
 
 Now that we of the colony were put in a better 
 frame of mind, in the way I have related, we were 
 more candid with ourselves and one another, and 
 looked our situation more in the face, as it were. 
 We were aHve to the danger of relapse, especially 
 with the winter coming on, and the dreariness in- 
 cident to the season, and we resolved to take such 
 precautions as we could. Especially were we deter- 
 mined not to let idleness add its part to our difficul- 
 ties, and that was how we came to take up the busi- 
 ness of cutting cordwood and railroad ties in the 
 tamarack swamps. These swamps stood all about 
 us, some not above three or four miles away, 
 offering an endless supply of timber, such as it 
 was, unsuitable for lumber where pine was at all 
 cheap, but having a considerable value nevertheless. 
 Tamarack wood sold for three dollars a cord in the 
 city sixteen miles away, and the ties were worth 
 twenty-five cents apiece delivered at the siding, and 
 we thought we could see money in it, saying noth- 
 ing of the profit we should derive from keeping 
 busy all winter, since that was not to be figured in 
 dollars and cents. 
 
 The neighbors advised us against it. They 
 stuck at the price it was necessary to pay for the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 211 
 
 stnmpage, as they called the standing timber. The 
 owners of the land, who lived at a distance, were 
 avaricious, as some men have a way of being, and 
 they must have their dollar for every cord we cut, 
 and by that the neighbors insisted that there was 
 nothing in it for us. But we detected what we 
 privately set down as a flaw in their calculations, 
 and it was this, that they took it for granted a 
 man might better be loafing than working for less 
 than fifty cents a day. We had different notions, 
 and said to ourselves we should be well content if 
 we did so well, for fifty cents a day for each of us 
 would come to a tidy sum in the course of the four 
 frozen months during which we could do nothing 
 else. Anyway, we could not lose, and so we went 
 
 at it. 
 
 We took up with the nearest swamp first, 
 
 naturally, and we managed the going and coming 
 
 in such a way that we had every minute of the short 
 
 winter day for work, except the few minutes we 
 
 knocked off for dinner, which we carried out with 
 
 us, or, if the weather was so cold we could not keep 
 
 the food from freezing, for any length of time, had 
 
 it brought out to us about noon. One of us was 
 
 detailed to stay at home during the day, to attend 
 
 to the stock and the chores which were not fit 
 
 for the women to do, a different man for every day, 
 
 by which arrangement we gave ourselves a respite 
 
 of one day every two weeks, or what we called a 
 
 respite. As a matter of fact, there was not one of 
 
 us who did not greatly prefer to go with the gang 
 
 into the swamp and chop all day, but of the thmgs 
 
212 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 that had to be done, each of us took what fell to 
 him, never stopping to ask if he liked it or not. It 
 astonished us to find how easy the new work was, 
 once we had settled ourselves to a determination 
 to go through with it, and we could not help but 
 compare it with the grubbing which had seemed 
 so hard. While the two forms of labor had much 
 in common, the circumstances were entirely dif- 
 ferent. Swinging an ax in the tingling cold air of 
 winter was not much like swinging it in the heat 
 of early summer, though it was the same ax in 
 both cases. But more than anything else, our late 
 visitation of the black dog lent a zest to the labor 
 which should be the means of banishing him. We 
 were on our guard against worry in any form. 
 Whoever showed any the least fretfulness, no matter 
 what the occasion, or how much it justified him, 
 he had the rest of us down on him instantly, to 
 have it out with him then and there, and badger 
 him until he was glad to give up and be good. It 
 was a grand discipline. We were like so many 
 brothers of about an age, and by this I mean not 
 the seraphic brothers you read about sometimes, 
 who weep on one another's neck and protest their 
 love, but real flesh and blood brothers who help to 
 bring one another up, and by their scant respect 
 for any manifestation of childishness make men of 
 one another. I look back upon that first winter in 
 the swamps as one of the pleasantest periods of 
 a life not lacking in pleasant periods. Have you 
 ever had the good fortune to smell tamarack when 
 it is green and freshly bruised? If you have not. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 2 1 '^ 
 
 I can give you no adequate idea of it, how spicy 
 and sweet it is. With a dozen or more of us hack- 
 ing away all the time, we were like priests in the 
 midst of an incense, our nostrils constantly com- 
 forted with the delicious savor. We had such fine 
 times out there, that the women conceived an envy, 
 and spoke seriously of coming out and taking their 
 part, but of course this was not practicable. There 
 would be scant fun for such as came for nothing 
 else. The fun was incidental, and that was what 
 made it fun. 
 
 To swell our abundant good fortune, the sleigh- 
 ing was excellent, a piece of luck which we did not 
 then appreciate at its full worth, not being aware 
 as yet how very rare a thing excellent sleighing 
 is in this country, for all it is such a cold country, 
 partly because of the winter being with us the dry 
 season, and partly because of the winds, which will 
 seldom let the snow lie where it falls, but must 
 whirl it into towering heaps until the roads are 
 neither for wheeling nor sleighing, what with the 
 alternation of bare spots with deep drifts. But as 
 it chanced that winter, the first heavy fall of snow 
 came on a mild day and was largely mingled with 
 rain, and the frost tightening strongly as the skies 
 cleared, a crust of solid ice w^as formed which 
 defied the wind and the sun and the wear and tear 
 of trafific until well into March. The falls which 
 followed drifted much in the usual way, and 
 embarrassed us somewhat, but at worst there was 
 no bare ground, and the rest was to be gotten over 
 somehow. 
 
214 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 The significance of the good sleighing was that 
 the three teams, which we kept steadily at work 
 hauling, could carry two cords each, on sleds, 
 whereas a single cord of the heavy green wood, 
 on wheels, would be the limit of a load. The three 
 together, carrying thus six cords in all, brought back 
 with them the very decent matter of eighteen dol- 
 lars, and only six dollars to be counted out. They 
 did not attempt to go to the city oftener than every 
 other day, lest it prove too much for the horses, and 
 there was enough to do on the odd days, what with 
 hauling such ties as we had ready down to the 
 siding and getting themselves loaded up for an 
 early start on the longer trip. But at that it was 
 no such work as inferior horses would have carried 
 through, or even the best of horses, without the 
 perfect care which our teamsters knew how to 
 give them. 
 
 The ties were almost too much trouble in the 
 making to be worth while, as compared with the 
 cordwood, which was next to no trouble at all, 
 until our carpenters, turning their art to account 
 once more, hit upon a way of splitting off the slab 
 with wedges, obviating, in that way, the great 
 labor of dressing down with axes. It is a 
 peculiarity of tamarack that the grain is ordinarily 
 straight, in that part of the trunk which is large 
 enough to make a tie of, and this circumstance 
 greatly assisted the process, until we were able to 
 turn out a very acceptable tie without much hewing, 
 and with a clean slab to go into the pile of cord- 
 wood, instead of a wastage of splinters and shav- 
 
A Lord of Lands. I15 
 
 ings. Inasmuch as we paid such a great price for 
 the stumpage, it behooved us to save every scrap. 
 Even the spHnters and shavings which we could not 
 avoid making were not lost, though they brought 
 us no money, for we took them home for fuel. 
 For the time being, with the oaks we had grubbed 
 out lying everywhere about, this looked like carry- 
 ing coals to Newcastle, and got us railed at, in a 
 kindly way, by the less provident neighbors. But we 
 were used to thinking of fuel as something precious, 
 and we had not to look far ahead to see the end 
 even of such profusion as we were in the midst of. 
 Some of us were that smitten with parsimony that 
 they went in for burning the very twigs of the trees, 
 but it soon appeared there was no profit in that, for 
 the housewife who should feed her fire with twigs 
 would have no time left to feed her family. In 
 justification of our economy I will say that we had 
 wood to burn long after the farmers about us were 
 having to buy coal for their fires, though it is long, 
 now, that we, too, have been burning coal. 
 
 We came out of the winter in excellent temper, 
 and that was the main thing. The black dog was 
 banished for good and all. As for the material 
 gain by our enterprise, it was not contemptible, 
 either. For when the first day of April came round. 
 and our interest fell due, we counted up and found 
 we had not only enough to meet that obligation, 
 but a comfortable bit over. This we put away in 
 the bank in the city, as a sinking fund against the 
 principal of our debt, or, rather, since we were 
 not adept enough in finance to be thinking of sink- 
 
21 6 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 ing funds, as something against the rainy day. 
 We could not expect to be always as prosperous as 
 we had been hitherto, for while we had had trouble 
 enough, it was none of it put upon us from 
 without. After the experience of many years we 
 can understand much better how highly we 
 were favored in our beginnings, but even in the 
 time of it, we understood it sufficiently to be think- 
 ing of worse things, in a prudent mind. It was 
 too beautiful to last, and we were none of us 
 beguiled into thinking otherwise, though we were 
 by no means cast down, but rather stung with a 
 great fortitude and willingness to encounter what- 
 soever adversity should be in store for us. 
 
 Only they who live in a cold country can know 
 all the sweetness of spring's awakening. It is here 
 that nature's sleeping comes near indeed to the 
 aspect of death, and her waking to that of resurrec- 
 tion. They talk of spring in the south, and no 
 doubt think it spring, but what can they know of 
 spring who have no winter, more than they know 
 of joy who have no sorrow, or of day who have no 
 night? Up here with us, after all the bitter cold, 
 it seems no less than a miracle when life comes 
 pulsing back into the trees and the herbs, and we 
 could hardly be gladder if some loved one mourned 
 for dead had risen from the grave. 
 
 It was well for us that our spirits ran high. For 
 under our unsuspicious feet there was gathering a 
 great calamity. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 That first summer, with its dismal mugginess, 
 and how dismal it was, except for such feeble and 
 reflected joy as could be derived from the joy of 
 the plants, which revelled in it, I have no words 
 sufficient to describe, mightily favored the insects, 
 too, a circumstance to which I have already made 
 passing reference. There were more kinds of 
 insects in the air than you could count, and millions 
 upon millions, it would seem, of each and every 
 kind, or, at all events, of the troublesome kind. I 
 never acquired such a comprehensive fondness for 
 nature and all her works that I could highly stomach 
 insects or reptiles, especially the latter, which send 
 a shock of terror to my heart by the mere sight of 
 them, even though I know them to be harmless, 
 as all the reptiles we have here are, and this I 
 reckon not least among the blessings which a bounti- 
 ful Providence has showered upon us, for I would 
 not wish to live in the garden of Eden itself, if 
 I had to share it with a rattlesnake, or a viper, or, 
 that horror of all horrors, a python. I cannot see 
 any kind of a snake, even the innocent garter 
 snake which is as good a friend of man as half the 
 creatures more highly thought of, but I have an 
 almost irresistible impulse to bruise its head, perhaps 
 
21 8 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 out of the old grudge that comes down to the seed 
 of the woman, but more likely, I suspect, out of an 
 instinct of self-defense inherited from some distant 
 age when reptiles were more formidable. As for 
 insects, I deem them in some sort the near cousins 
 of snakes, since they are for the most part worms of 
 a later growth. Elizabeth assures me I am wrong 
 in esteeming worms to be reptiles, but I find upon 
 consulting the large dictionary, which I purchased 
 when I entered upon the task of writing a book, 
 by way of fortifying myself, that the word reptile 
 properly signifies any creature that crawls, and if 
 worms do not crawl, my eyes deceive me, not to 
 speak of my sense of touch, when the vile things 
 get on my neck. 
 
 We paid but slight attention to the insects, how- 
 ever, beyond plentifully reviling them, in general 
 terms, more especially the mosquitoes, which rose 
 to such a pitch of ferocity and bloodthirstiness, I 
 daresay by reason of their vast numbers and the 
 resulting scarcity of food, that they would bite 
 indifferently as well by day as by night, in sun 
 as well as in shade, until there seemed to be no 
 escape from them; and the gnats, which swarmed 
 so thickly as to make breathing a matter of some 
 risk and great inconvenience; and the deerflies, 
 which drove the cattle to a frenzy. But along late 
 in the summer there came a bug which forced itself 
 upon our notice, little as we were in the mood for 
 seeing anything beyond our megrims, and not by 
 making itself disagreeable either, but rather by its 
 extremely odd looks and habits. It could both fly 
 
A Lord of Lands. 219 
 
 and jump, being furnished with stout wings for the 
 one purpose and for the other with wonderful long 
 legs which folded up like a jack-knife, nor did it sac- 
 rifice efficiency to versatility, for it could both fly and 
 jump amazingly well. This bug chose the meadows, 
 and the stubble where small grain had grown, and 
 it rose in clouds from every side as you walked 
 along, giving out a rasping sound, something after 
 the style of a cricket. It had a queer way of gather- 
 ing on the handle of any fork or rake which should 
 be left in the field, as if fancying the saltiness which 
 our sweaty hands had deposited there, and when- 
 ever we took up a tool which had been visited in 
 this way, we found the hard oak wood roughened 
 to the touch, showing that the creature's jaws were 
 strongly furnished with sharp teeth. 
 
 The neighbors called these bugs grasshoppers, 
 and made nothing of them at first, saying that there 
 were always grasshoppers. But as the hordes grew 
 steadily thicker and thicker, there began to be a 
 feeling of uneasiness, and speculation as to what 
 might be the significance of the incursion. Of 
 course there were various theories. Some, of the 
 gloomy kind, would have it that these were no other 
 than the dreadful seventeen year locusts, the very 
 sort, we were awesomely informed, with what 
 authority I know not, which plagued Egypt in Bible 
 times, being sent to put Pharaoh in mind of his 
 w^ickedness. Others, inclined to the brighter view, 
 still insisted that the bugs were only the ordinary 
 grasshoppers, come this year in greater profusion 
 than common simply because the conditions were 
 
2 20 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 uncommonly favorable to them. Among these 
 latter Baldwin was prominent. He had a certain 
 ascendancy in matters of opinion by reason of his 
 habitual reticence, and his positive, terse way of 
 speaking when he did speak, and when he declared 
 that seventeen year locusts always had the figures 
 " 17 " plainly marked on their backs, whereas the 
 backs of the bug at hand were unadorned with mark 
 or symbol of any kind, I, for one, felt as if Rome 
 had spoken and the cause was closed. 
 
 Another circumstance we observed, and might 
 well have taken warning from it, but did not. Very 
 late in the fall, just on the edge of freezing up, there 
 appeared in the crust of the soil, now somewhat dry 
 with the abatement of the rains, a great multitude 
 of small holes, like tiny wells, as round and as 
 clean cut as if they had been bored with a gimlet. 
 Being more at leisure by that time, and glad to 
 find something to keep my mind busy, I explored 
 a number of these holes, digging cautiously down 
 to see what might be at the bottom of them, and 
 found that each held hundreds of little white 
 globules strung together in some mysterious way. 
 I took them to be eggs, and eggs they were, big 
 with dire fate. 
 
 Long before spring, what with all we had to 
 fill our thoughts, we had forgotten the grasshoppers 
 entirely, and even the gnats and mosquitoes, which 
 had given us vastly more concern, and all the 
 mugginess and discomfort of summer, and this, I 
 say, is one of the happiest of provisions, that where- 
 as we finish a season with something of a loathing 
 
A Lord of Lands. 221 
 
 for it, and the feeling tliat we should be most 
 pleased never to see another, when the year rolls by 
 and it comes again, we have left with us only the 
 memory of its joys, and welcome it very heartily. 
 There would be vastly more hard feeling in the 
 world, and truly there is enough as it is, were it not 
 that we forget bad weather so quickly, and remember 
 good weather so long. Well, this second spring 
 was a very different spring from its predecessor, as 
 was only to be expected, since we are known never 
 to have two seasons alike, a circumstance which has 
 given rise to the subtle witticism that our weather is 
 always exceptional. This March was to the last 
 a winter month, not, it is true, with the hard, 
 intense winteriness of January, but winter still and 
 nothing else. On the 14th day of the month there 
 fell two feet deep of snow, which we thought from 
 the wetness of it to see go in a few days, and yet on 
 the I St day of April it still lay as it had fallen, hardly 
 wasted at all, for all the while the air had held at 
 the freezing point or a very little above. I never 
 saw snow betray such a prolonged reluctance to 
 becoming water, which is its inevitable fate. But 
 the fortnight following the vernal equinox is apt 
 to be the time of the battle royal betwixt winter 
 and spring, with winter in grudging retreat, yielding 
 sulkily, as the powerful are wont to do, when they 
 are compelled. Winter's warrior is the night and 
 spring's the day, and now the night has shriveled 
 and shriveled, and the day has w^axed and waxed, 
 until the brave work of the day in spring's behalf is 
 more than the night may undo. Then all at once 
 
222 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 there comes the crisis, when the night is completely 
 worsted, and winter flees, and spring reigns. On 
 the 1st day of April, as I say, the snow lay as deep 
 as ever, though trembling on the verge of disso- 
 lution, but on the 7th day of the month, there was 
 no snow to be seen save here and there the dirty 
 remnant where a heavy drift had lain, and we 
 plowed our gardens and planted our peas and our 
 blackseed onions. 
 
 In one sense we had no spring at all, that year. 
 We walked out of winter, and there lay summer 
 before us, with no spring intervening to usher 
 us from one extreme to the other. It seemed like 
 a pleasant dream, or a piece out of a fairy story, it 
 was to that degree more agreeable than anything we 
 had a right to expect. Between the 12th and the 
 20th there ensued a hot spell, something untimely 
 and inauspicious, had we known the truth, but 
 which we accepted as a great blessing and were glad 
 over it, and of course it was grateful to be suddenly 
 sweltering, after freezing for four or five months. 
 As for the vegetation, it leaped forward. Long be- 
 fore the first of May the cows were getting their, 
 whole living in the pastures, and disdaining the dry 
 food which we still set before them, for we could 
 hardly believe the new grass sufficient, and by that I 
 should judge that the plant life was three weeks and 
 perhaps a month in advance of its usual progress. 
 All this bustHng haste on the part of nature had 
 the effect of firing us wonderfully, and filling us 
 with a zeal to be up and doing. Our old land we 
 had plowed in the fall, excepting the home plots, and 
 
A Lord of Lands. 223 
 
 the fields lay ready for the seed as soon as the 
 snow was gone. The water, great flood of it though 
 there was, vanished almost in a twinkling, through 
 the porous soil, and the land was firm to the horses' 
 feet, and we sowed our wheat. 
 
 We had a great wish to raise wheat, and why, 
 I know not, since it is far from being the most 
 profitable of crops, for light land, anyway. You 
 may figure it out for yourself. Twenty bushels of 
 wheat to the acre is a large yield, and a dollar a 
 bushel is a large price, which means that under 
 very favorable conditions wheat will bring you in 
 twenty dollars from each acre. But eighty bushels 
 of potatoes is a small yield, and twenty-five cents 
 is a small price, and at once you have potatoes 
 bringing you in as much, under unfavorable condi- 
 tions, as wheat under favorable. This is in gross, 
 of course, and not counting out the cost of labor, 
 which a small farmer who hires no help does not 
 much reckon with. Nevertheless, for whatever rea- 
 son, or no reason at all, we were for wheat. Per- 
 haps it is out of sentiment, wheat being beyond 
 doubt the very king of grains, the staff of life, the 
 corn of the Scriptures, and in respect of its ultimate 
 usefulness incomparably the superior of potatoes, 
 and the longer I live the more I am persuaded that 
 sentiment sways even practical men, and in the 
 most practical affairs, though it should be uncon- 
 sciously. We needed a lesson or two, and we got 
 them, with a vengeance. 
 
 We sowed the wheat, and it seemed to spring up 
 almost under our feet, what with the warmth and 
 
2 24 ^ Lord of Lands. 
 
 the wetness, and its thrift was something to make 
 us proud and happy. After the weather had held 
 hot for a week or ten days, there came a cool 
 spell, providentially sent, we could almost believe, 
 to make our wheat stool out properly. It covered 
 the ground like a rich carpet, only with the added 
 charm that it prefigured to our eager eyes a very 
 mine of wealth. 
 
 Suddenly, into the midst of all this fair prospect, 
 came the plague, boiling up out of the ground. 
 Those little wells in the ground were the nests of 
 the locust, and the locust, let it lack what it might 
 in the way of marks, was the most dreadful of its 
 kind, and if Pharaoh was as hard hit by it as we 
 were, no wonder he sent for Moses at once and 
 promised to be good forever after. The warmth 
 which we had called blessed was the mischief, for 
 it had struck down into the earth and hatched the 
 eggs every one, I daresay, and the young were 
 coming up, wingless yet and able only to crawl, 
 seeking what they might devour. And now it 
 seemed as if all the graciousness of the season were 
 not for us at all, but for these vile vermin. It was 
 they that the forwardness had favored, with its 
 unwonted warmth not only to hatch them out, but 
 to lay a great luscious feast ready for them, and 
 it made us rage and gnash our teeth to think that 
 whereas it* was promised to man, made in the image 
 of his God, that all things should be subject to 
 him, and for his use, here we had been made the 
 unwilling and unwitting servants to provide, out 
 of our own sustenance, and with toil and sweat, the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 225 
 
 food to feed these most unworthy and useless of 
 creatures, for you know how men will remember 
 heaven when they have something to reproach it 
 with, if never otherwhile. The grasshoppers took 
 the wheat first. It was just getting tall enough to 
 wave in the wind, and billow like the bosom of a 
 lake, and its color was the deep green which verges 
 on blue, and betokens a mighty strength of sap, 
 and I doubt not it tasted good to them. They swept 
 over it like a consuming flame, and when they were 
 done with it, there was nothing left, the ground lay 
 as black and barren as a desert. 
 
 How shall I hope to picture to you the desolation 
 of that time? All things went a sacrifice, the grass, 
 the leaves, whatsoever was green and living, except- 
 ing only some weeds which were left as if to mock 
 us, and still the pests were not fed. The more they 
 ate the hungrier they grew. They got their wings, 
 in due time, and became all the more efficient in 
 evil, for where they could but crawl, at first, and 
 make but slow progress, they flew, now, as swiftly 
 and as strongly as birds, for miles at a stretch, in 
 clouds which darkened the face of the day. 
 Though the greater part were eating always, the 
 air was likewise full of them, and you could not 
 stir out but they crashed into your face, hurling 
 themselves upon you, by accident, I suppose, but 
 with all the air of being fiercely minded to devour 
 you as well as your fields. We had everything 
 planted, the corn, the garden truck, and all, before 
 we received the least intimation of what was 
 coming. The locusts left the corn until they had 
 15 
 
226 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 finished the wheat and the oats and the barley, and 
 even the rye, though this was rather past the soft 
 green stage, and in the meanwhile, with the condi- 
 tions of growth so favorable, its stalks were mount- 
 ing manfully. I never laid eyes on finer corn, and 
 that was true of all the crops, as if nature, like 
 some beaming, hospitable hostess, were outdoing 
 herself to make these vile guests welcome, and you 
 can imagine with what melancholy we saw it 
 doomed. It was coming to something near its tall- 
 ness when the insects went at it in good earnest, 
 and when they left it there was nothing to see but 
 the hard stems, and even these were hollowed out 
 of their soft pith. Why they left the stems I 
 cannot say. It was not because they had not the 
 teeth for the service, because they could bite into a 
 fork handle. The onions they devoured tops and 
 all, and followed the slender rootlets far down 
 into the ground, having, as it would appear, an 
 especial relish for this vegetable, or possibly 
 resorting to it, as some people do, with the 
 notion that its strong juices stimulate the di- 
 gestion. Of the cabbages they left only the 
 lowest part of the stem, and this they hollowed out, 
 as they had done with the corn. As for the melon 
 vines and the squash vines, and all the like, they 
 melted like mist before the sun, or dry stubble before 
 a fire. The mist as perhaps the better parallel, 
 because it disappears utterly, whereas, of the burnt 
 stubble, there are at least ashes left. The greediness 
 of the insects, as they came to the end of their 
 resources, was something incredible. One of the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 227 
 
 last of the growing things they took was the potato 
 vines, and it was fun, of a grim sort, to see them 
 rob the potato-bugs of their accustomed plunder. 
 Thieves of this sort have no honor among them, and 
 no pest of the relatively leisurely manner of the 
 potato-bug stood any chance that year. The devices 
 of the grasshoppers after their chosen food was 
 all gone were various and interesting. I have seen 
 them collected in a mass inches deep over the spot 
 where the women cast out their dish-water, fighting 
 fiercely with one another for the bits of food there 
 to be found. A neighbor who lived near a swamp 
 had builded his house of logs, and pasted old news- 
 papers over the cracks inside. The paste was made 
 of flour, and this the bugs discovered, in their own 
 w^ay. They wriggled themselves through between 
 the logs from the outside, though the chinks had 
 been plastered up with clay, and devoured the paste, 
 and even the wood where the paste had soaked in 
 a little, till the papers fell to the floor. 
 
 Can you imagine a more desperate plight than 
 ours? It was no figment of fancy we had to deal 
 with now, but trouble only too real. Nowhere 
 was there left so much as a blade of grass for the 
 stock to feed on, and nowhere a stalk growing to 
 furnish them food for the winter. To make a 
 bad matter worse, our brood sows brought forth 
 bountifully, in the very midst of the calamity, 
 afflicting us with near a hundred new mouths to 
 feed, and clamorous mouths, too, though not fastid- 
 ious. For awhile it looked as if we had no choice 
 but to kill both the pigs and their mothers, to save 
 
228 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 them from starving, and by that we would lose 
 them utterly, since their flesh was worthless. It 
 was true we had corn left from the previous year, 
 but we had ourselves to think of, and with the 
 present outlook we dared feed none of it to the 
 beasts. That there was a way out of the difficulty 
 I verily believe we never should have discovered, 
 but for the ancient woman among us, whom I have 
 spoken of, Mrs. Hoff, the mother of Mrs. Krecke. 
 She was a shy old lady, greatly given to reading her 
 Bible and knitting at the same time, and shunning 
 company except as she could be of service, which 
 was not seldom, for she had a wonderful influence 
 with children, and could instantly soothe the fretful 
 child which its mother had given up in despair. I 
 fancy she had a most pure and unselfish heart, and 
 this the little ones became aware of, in some way 
 all their own. She was withal rather a pathetic 
 figure, born to bear heavy crosses, but bearing them 
 always bravely. I recall one of her trials which 
 struck me as being particularly grievous. She could 
 never learn English, being an old woman before she 
 had occasion, and her grandchildren, the rascals, 
 with all the partiality of children for the vernacular, 
 would never learn German. The upshot was that 
 this old woman, except for baby talk which is the 
 one universal tongue, could not converse with her 
 children's children, and what that must have meant 
 to her, we who are grandparents need not be told. 
 But I am getting away from the pigs. 
 
 In the wake of the pestilence, the growing season 
 being at its height, there sprung up a great profusion 
 
A Lord of Lands. 229 
 
 of rank, coarse weeds. Some of these, such as 
 the fox-tail and the purslane, the locusts ate as 
 fast as a leaf appeared above the ground, but some 
 they left, which we wondered at, in view of their 
 voracity, but were in no mood to see anything 
 providential in, being rather inclined to take offense, 
 as if we were being insulted. Among the weeds 
 which escaped there was a power of red-root, a 
 plant which may well have been the ancestor, after 
 a manner of speaking, of our garden beet, and of 
 the mangel wurzel which the cows are so fond of. 
 I have a diffidence in asserting kinship between 
 plants, since I learned that the strawberry and 
 the rose are near cousins, than which no two 
 strike me as less aHke, but certain it is that this 
 weed of which I speak has a thick, sappy root 
 much resembling that of the beet. Now our 
 dear old woman, unwilling to believe that God 
 had deserted us, and casting about all the time for 
 some shred of evidence with which to confirm her 
 faith, and being deeply touched, as who of us was 
 not, by the dire straits of the swine, with the 
 mothers drawn down to a shadow by suckling their 
 young while having next to nothing to eat them- 
 selves, in a moment of inspiration, such as comes to 
 those chosen to prophesy, conceived the thought 
 that the weeds which the locusts passed by in such 
 a strange way were for a sign and a salvation. 
 Without saying a word to anybody, she went out 
 one day and pulled a great armful of the red-root 
 and threw it over into one of the pens, and behold, 
 the pigs ate it eagerly. She pulled more, and it was 
 
230 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 eaten in a like manner, and then she came running, 
 with eyes aflame and her wrinkled face all flushed 
 with joy, to tell us about it. We were more struck 
 with a suspicion that Mrs. Hoff had gone wrong in 
 her mind than with any conviction of merit in what 
 she was saying, but we went with her, and saw with 
 our own eyes, and then, you will believe, we were 
 glad, too. We all fell to and fetched weeds by 
 the armful, but still the pigs would have more, and 
 at length we hitched up the teams and brought 
 them by the wagon-load, and kept the pens supplied. 
 It was pretty meager diet, I confess, and not at all 
 such as I should advise except as a last resort, but 
 the pigs made out to live, and if their backs stood 
 out rather sharply before the summer was over, we 
 were given no scandal by that, considering what 
 might have been. The oaks, meanwhile, were 
 growing a good crop of acorns, in spite of the 
 assaults of the locusts, for the oak, once firmly 
 fixed, is a plant not easily to be put out of its way, 
 and when, in the latter part of August, the nuts 
 began to fall, we turned the pigs loose in a great 
 drove, with the children to herd them, and let them 
 forage for themselves. The acorns proved a 
 nourishing food, and the pigs were that keen for 
 them they were always on the alert to hear them 
 drop, and when they heard one, they would scramble 
 after it, a dozen of them together, in the most 
 comical fashion. The young people tried to fool 
 them by dropping pebbles on the ground, and fool 
 them they did, but only once or twice, for with that 
 slender schooling they learned to discriminate 
 
A Lord of Lands. 231 
 
 nicely between the sound of a pebble and the sound 
 of an acorn, and were not to be deceived any more. 
 In all that concerns him, a pig is the wisest animal 
 that walks on four feet and there are animals on 
 two feet, and moreover without feathers, that might 
 take lessons of him with profit. In October, when 
 the nuts were gone, we sold all the swine, young 
 and old, keeping none, and they were in no bad 
 order, though by no means rolling in fat. The 
 plague of locusts, spread far and wide, had the 
 effect of glutting the market with hogs which people 
 were left without means of keeping, and by that 
 the price was very low, but we were money ahead, 
 withal, to say nothing of the encouragement there 
 was in having in some sense beaten misfortune. 
 
 While the grasshoppers were far and away the 
 most destructive pests we had to encounter, they 
 had the goodness to betake themselves off, in time, 
 and, what was more, for good and all, and that was 
 truly a redeeming trait, giving them a virtuous 
 distinction among pests, which are commonly peren- 
 nial, and not less sure than those standard examples 
 of certainty, death and taxes. Since they had left 
 us little else to do but sit by and watch them, we 
 got to take a certain melancholy interest in their 
 progress, and we perceived that they grew very 
 rapidly, and we fell into some speculation as to what 
 was likely to happen when they should have come 
 to their maturity. Two opinions sprang up, as usual, 
 the opinion of hope and the opinion of despair. 
 The sanguine of us held that inasmuch as the old 
 locusts of the previous year had come flying from 
 
232 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 a distance, seeking a place to lay their eggs, these, 
 their children, arrived at the breeding age, would 
 likewise seek fresh fields and pastures new, their 
 instinct informing them that the lands which they 
 had devastated were less likely to provide their 
 progeny with food than lands as yet unvisited. 
 Those of the gloomy temper, on the other hand, 
 were not to be persuaded but that the pests intended 
 staying right where they w^ere, to breed year after 
 year, until the country should be laid waste as with 
 fire and sword, beyond recovery, and be henceforth 
 a desert. Such, these latter argued, for curiously 
 enough they were the more religious members of 
 the colony, was the usual operation of the curses 
 which a just God sent to punish sinful man, and 
 assuredly we were not entitled by our shining 
 virtues to claim any exemption. But Mrs. Hoff, 
 the most religious of all, and the one coming nearest 
 to carrying her religion into her practice, was of the 
 sanguine party. " God is good," she would say, as 
 often as anybody asked her what she thought about 
 it, and, prophetess that she was, she was right. 
 When the locusts were fully grown, at last, except 
 for a certain youthful slimness of their bodies as 
 compared with the old insects, they stopped eating, 
 pretty much. They began to let the grass grow 
 under their feet, as it w^ere, and the leaves of the 
 trees, and we saw these looking up perceptibly, and 
 the joy of the cattle, which had hitherto, from the 
 descent of the plague, wandered up and down the 
 blackened pastures, searching vainly for the food 
 they loved, was something to warm our hearts. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 233 
 
 The manner of the bugs underwent a complete 
 change, indeed. They were become wonderfully 
 restless, and spent more and more of their time 
 whirling aimlessly about in the air. Were they 
 getting ready to breed, or to fly away? It was a 
 moment of tremendous suspense. For my own part, 
 the wish rather than reason being the father of the 
 thought, I will admit, I took the new activity of 
 the creatures to be a propitious sign. I liked to 
 think, and to say, that they were inuring their wings 
 to arduous service and a long flight. 
 
 And I was not mistaken. The deHverance came, 
 and it came quickly, even as the affliction itself had 
 come. One day the sky was filled with grass- 
 hoppers, drifting off like a thick mist, and the next 
 day they wxre gone, forever. We still have 
 grasshoppers, every year, about harvest time, and 
 they gather on our fork-handles and roughen them 
 to the touch, but never have they laid such another 
 mine under our feet, or if they have, it has never 
 been sprung. The claim is plausibly made that the 
 insects find only now and then a year which, in the 
 vicissitudes of the weather, permits them to breed 
 prosperously. A cold rain, for instance, falling 
 just as the young begin to stir, will destroy them 
 all, and cold rains are common, with us, in the 
 spring, and disagreeable enough they are, too, what 
 with being neither winter nor summer, but a com- 
 bination of the worst features of both. But if they 
 save us from the plague of locusts, we can easily 
 forgive them. 
 
 There was time, even yet, to raise crops of a 
 
2 34 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 sort. Turnips would come quite to maturity with- 
 in the six or eight weeks of growing weather which 
 we could count on with reasonable certainty, and 
 these would help to feed the cattle. Millet would 
 make something of a growth, and supply us with 
 good hay, though it should not ripen fully. In the 
 heavy soil we planted corn in thick rows, with the 
 purpose to cut it green and cure it for fodder, and 
 on the lighter soil, oats, to be cut green likewise, 
 and all these ventures turned out well. We made 
 out to get a good bit of wild hay, too, from the 
 neighboring marshes. Of course, when I say the 
 ventures turned out well, I measure them by what 
 we had a right to expect. Nothing gets a really 
 good growth, in our country, unless it begins grow- 
 ing in May, thus to get the great forward push 
 of June. Our situation was bad at best, and could 
 only be called good in comparison with what it 
 might have been. The locusts lifted a big load 
 from our hearts when they rose and flew away, 
 and after that almost any small favor was fit to 
 move our gratitude. Curiously enough, there 
 was never a touch of the old homesickness, never 
 a word of doubt whether we had not done a foolish 
 thing ever to leave the town. In point of fact, the 
 country was become our home, now, and the senti- 
 ment which a few months before had turned our 
 hearts away from it, now bound us to it as with 
 hooks of steel. 
 
 For the lack of anything better to do, the make- 
 shift crops requiring little or no attention, and the 
 neighbors, since they were as badly bitten as our- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 235 
 
 selves, having no occasion to hire help, we went 
 into the swamps early, long before the ground froze, 
 indeed, and found it no pleasant thing wading about 
 in the treacherous ooze. But we stuck to it, with 
 good heart, and by the time the frost had built a 
 bridge for the horses to come in over, we had a 
 great pile of wood and ties waiting for them to 
 haul it away. And besides the wood and the ties, 
 we hewed out frames for barns, for we were looking 
 hopefully ahead, out of our wreck, to the increase 
 of our stock. All of our cows had brought forth 
 duly and creditably, and among the sixteen calves 
 were nine sturdy little heifers. These we resolved 
 to keep, even at the risk of having to buy feed for 
 them, before grass should grow again. The seven 
 little bull-calves, not less sturdy, we sold for veal, 
 and they fetched us more than fifty dollars, and 
 this we set aside and used to buy bran with, and 
 imagined, by a comfortable fiction which only simple 
 people could indulge themselves in, that the cows 
 were thus taking care of themselves, for had they 
 not furnished the calves, and the calves the money ? 
 We had some of the old corn still by us, and a great 
 profusion of rough fodder, and there were no hogs 
 to feed, and all in all we got through pretty well. It 
 was short commons for man and beast, except the 
 milking cows, which we dared not scamp lest they 
 go dry and leave us without our very prop and stay, 
 and yet it was a joyful time. To have been woe- 
 fully tried, yet surviving whole; to have ground 
 upon which to build new hopes, what more did we 
 need to give us joy? 
 
^36 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 When the ist of April came, we had money 
 enough, with the fund we had put away in the 
 bank the year before, to meet our interest. We 
 had set our hearts on paying something more, and 
 it was a bitter thing to be disappointed of it, but 
 for all that we were glad to be able to do anything 
 at all. About a week after we handed the money 
 to Mr. Beverly, or rather to his clerk, for the old 
 man was not about, there came a letter to me, with 
 the name of the company printed in the corner of 
 the envelope, and under it the words, Office of the 
 President. Exteriorly, it was quite such a letter 
 as I had once before received, but within it was as 
 unlike as possible, and whereas, out of chagrin and 
 mortification I had thrust the other letter into the 
 lire as soon as I had read it, this one I have kept, 
 and shall always keep, and hand it down to my 
 children, as something to be very proud of. It 
 lies before me, now, and I copy it for you: 
 
 " Dear Fitzgerald : 
 
 " Bully for you. Out of some thousands who owe us for their 
 land, all but you and a very few more have defaulted in their in- 
 terest, because of the grasshoppers. We excuse them, willingly, 
 and by that we think you entitled to all the more praise. 
 " Your credit is gilt-edged. 
 
 " Faithfully Yours, 
 
 " Jones Baring." 
 
 I will add, as a particular not insignificant, that 
 the letter was not written with a machine, but in 
 the Old Man's hand, throughout. 
 
 Pests, speaking of them generally, were some- 
 thing we had not much counted on. To be sure 
 
A Lord of Lands. 237 
 
 we were aware of the existence of creatures of a 
 destructive bent, but to what extent farming is an 
 incessant warfare with these, and not seldom a 
 warfare of doubtful issue, we never got to realize 
 until we had tried it for ourselves. Saying nothing 
 of the weeds, for they are to be overcome by mere 
 industry and vigilance, it still remains that no cher- 
 ished plant comes up out of the ground but some 
 form of destruction is waiting for it, and fortunate 
 is the farmer if at any cost of pains he can avert the 
 evil. 
 
 I am reminded of Ludovika's first cabbages. 
 
 Cabbages were ever the very apple of Ludovika's 
 eye. I think it was the second day after her arrival 
 here, but it may have been the third, that she began 
 to lay plans for an abundant supply of kraut, such as 
 should last all winter and nobody feel called upon to 
 deny himself. The neighbors had rude hotbeds, 
 most of them, and started a great many more 
 plants than they needed, and Ludovika readily 
 procured something like a thousand, more or less, 
 little cabbages, and as soon as the weather was fit 
 we set them out, under her anxious supervision, for 
 she insisted upon our using as much care as if we 
 were laying the foundations of a cathedral. After 
 that she tended them assiduously, watering them 
 by hand, stirring the soil to refresh them, never 
 suffering the semblance of a weed to steal away 
 any of their nourishment, and soon she had the 
 reward of seeing them lift up their heads and 
 promise great things. Neither of us foreboded evil, 
 considering how they had taken root, and were 
 
238 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 growing, in the best manner, and least of all did 
 we look for evil to proceed from the beautiful little 
 butterflies which came fluttering about the plants, 
 some of them white, and some of them a fine purple 
 in color. Who was to look with distrust on such 
 lovely creatures? Not I, and it was only I who 
 took much notice of them, for Ludovika had no eyes 
 to spare from her work. I was quite lost in admira- 
 tion of them, especially their stylish way of flying. 
 But with all their appearance of gay levity, they 
 were at the serious business of laying their eggs, 
 among the leaves of the cabbages, and these in 
 their appointed time brought forth green grubs, 
 which proceeded to bore tunnels through the swell- 
 ing heads until they looked as if they had been 
 riddled with shot. The mischief was done before 
 we knew it was begun. We got never a cabbage 
 out of our great patch, and but for the kindness of 
 neighbors must have gone krautless, a catastrophe 
 which I could have met with fortitude, but which 
 the partner of my joys and sorrows shuddered to 
 think of. The next year Ludovika thought to 
 destroy the pretty flies with a whisk, of deadly 
 construction, but although she pursued them with 
 the utmost acrimony, they were too many for her, 
 and we had at last to resort to poison. This 
 answered very well, and imported no such danger as 
 we had feared, for the reason that a cabbage builds 
 itself up from within, and no exterior spraying can 
 possibly affect the parts which are eaten. 
 
 There was another very handsome butterfly 
 which brought along calamity with it ; a big fellow. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 239 
 
 something equal to a small bird, of a clear orange 
 color, and gorgeous enough, but showmg to much 
 the iDest advantage when at rest, for he was 
 sluggish and awkward in motion. He hung about 
 the leaves of the oaks, and soon, for now, havmg 
 learned something of butterflies, I was watchmg 
 for developments, I found the under side of here 
 and there leaf overlaid with little round eggs, as 
 hard as glass to the touch, set in the most curiously 
 correct rows of varying tints, and looking for all 
 the world like Indian bead-work. It was a thing 
 of surpassing loveliness, and as marvelous as it 
 was lovely, but in no long time, as I was prepared 
 to see, there was another story to tell. Wherever 
 butterflies lay eggs, and howsoever beautiful these 
 eggs, there will presently be worms to reckon with. 
 The worms which came forth from the eggs of the 
 orange butterfly were not unworthy of their 
 derivation, for they were undeniably handsome, in 
 their way, which was necessarily a worm's way and 
 had its drawbacks. They wore the appearance, if 
 you could stomach to bend down and examme them 
 closely, of being clothed in a neat-fitting suit of the 
 finest black velvet, with two rows of glittering gold 
 buttons down the whole length of their backs, and 
 between these rows a faint piping, as it were, ot 
 turquoise blue. Could a color scheme be more 
 pleasing, in itself ? But where is the eye that can be 
 much pleased with any sort of a color scheme laid 
 on a squirming, wriggling worm? 
 
 They proved to be very destructive, though their 
 destruction cost us nothing unless it was peace of 
 
24^ A Lord of Lands. 
 
 mind. They never went near the crops, but we 
 were in fear and trembling for awhile, observing 
 their unappeasable hunger and wondering what 
 they were likely to do when they should have eaten 
 up the oak leaves, which were their chosen food. 
 Nothing could equal their gluttony and unmannerly 
 haste. Standing under the tree where they were 
 at work, you could plainly hear their jaws going, 
 while all about you the fragments of leaf which 
 they had rejected or let slip in their hurry, were 
 falling in a shower. They left the forest looking 
 very desolate indeed, but I cannot say that they 
 hurt the trees permanently, though they stripped 
 them bare for three successive seasons. The oak, as 
 I have already remarked, is a tough and stubborn 
 plant, and the more it has to contend against, the 
 tougher and stubborner it becomes. 
 
 When these worms were grown to the length of 
 two inches, or thereabouts, they suddenly left off 
 eating, and went to voyaging. They had some- 
 thing the air of seeking what else they might 
 devour, and we held our breath, as you may say, 
 until it turned out that their purpose was entirely 
 innocent, for what they sought was only a con- 
 venient place where they could roll themselves up 
 and change into butterflies at their leisure. They 
 crawled over the ground in close array, and that 
 worried us almost more than any other circum- 
 stance, since it seemed to identify them with the 
 dreadful army worm, all or nearly all moving in the 
 same general direction, and turning aside for noth- 
 ing and nobody. If they came to a house, they 
 
A Lord of Lands. 24 1 
 
 mounted up the sides of it, or went in at the door 
 or the window, until we found them everywhere 
 we least wished to find them, on the tables, even 
 in the beds, and do what we would we could not 
 keep them out. In the roads, where the soil had 
 cut down into deep ruts, vast numbers of them met 
 their fate, for there, with the rolling sand giving 
 way under their feet, they could make no headway 
 and heaped themselves up impotently, until the 
 wagons came and crushed them, and went off with 
 their wheels dripping loathesomely. We were glad 
 when they vanished, after tarrying three seasons, for 
 however harmless, they were unpleasant. What 
 made an end of them I know not, but I surmise it 
 was some unfavorable turn in the weather, coming 
 upon them at a critical time of their life. 
 
 Of course I cannot omit to speak of the chinch- 
 bugs, though I hardly know whether to classify 
 them with the pests, or with the blessings in dis- 
 guise. They were both, indeed. No pest, except 
 the grasshopper, was more sweepingly mischievous, 
 and no pest, bar none, left us so utterly without 
 defense or recourse. But at the same time it was 
 they that put the ban on wheat, and taught us, 
 albeit in a harsh fashion, the better way. As I 
 have pointed out, wheat is far from being the best 
 crop for a small farmer to raise, but such was our 
 infatuation for it that I doubt not we should have 
 kept on with it, had not Providence laid upon us 
 an interdict which we could not escape. 
 
 Between the grasshoppers and the chinch-bugs 
 we had a year to catch our breath in. when nothing 
 16 
 
242 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 untoward happened, or, anyway, nothing serious, 
 and that was a blessing indeed, for if they had come 
 in successive years I can hardly doubt but we should 
 have been crushed utterly. In this year of grace 
 we made a great progress, we thought, and think- 
 ing so, were mightily encouraged, and by the end 
 of the season felt the ground firm under our feet, 
 believing our success well assured. Once more 
 the weather was to blame for the pest, but this 
 time it was not an uncommon hot spring, but an 
 uncommon dry spring that did the mischief. We 
 had done wonders with wheat the previous year, and 
 now, with the price near the dollar mark, though 
 hovering up and down in the panicky way peculiar 
 to prices governed by speculation, our infatuation 
 became a species of madness, we lost our heads 
 completely, and covered every available nook with 
 the kingly grain, more than two hundred acres in 
 all. And as it happened, the dry weather, though 
 it was the cause of the winter rye, our stanchest 
 crop, being all but a failure, never harmed the 
 wheat, the few rains we got falling just in the 
 nick of time. I doubt if anybody ever saw finer 
 wheat, growing. Looking proudly over our fields, 
 as we were forever doing, at every opportunity, we 
 could see no reason, barring hail or heavy wind, why 
 we should not thresh in the neighborhood of four 
 thousand bushels, of the best grade, which meant 
 four thousand dollars, perhaps more. 
 
 Always in the nick of time, I say, and as the 
 wheat called for it, there fell moderate, but sufficient 
 rain, gently, without violence of any sort, like 
 
A Lord of Lands. 243 
 
 bountiful dew, until to our enchanted minds it 
 seemed as if the powers above were especially con- 
 cerned with our crop and determined to bring it 
 through rightly. By the middle of July the grain was 
 grown, with the deep green of it beginning slowly to 
 fade and soften into the yellow ripeness. It was a 
 delightful spectacle, especially of a fine hot evening, 
 and evening was when we had most time to admire 
 it, being closely engaged elsewhere during the day. 
 for then the low red sun cast a genial spell over it, 
 and seemed almost to be holding it in his warm 
 embrace, and softly kissing it good-night over and 
 over, like a lover taking leave of his girl, reluct- 
 antly; and the gentle stir of the cooling air imparted 
 just enough motion to make the chafing stalks whis- 
 per soothingly. Nothing handsomer than wheat 
 ever grows out of the ground, and I except neither 
 palm nor orchid, nor any other plant whatever. 
 
 And now the chinch-bugs fell on. They did not 
 attack with loud alarums, obtrusively, as the grass- 
 hoppers had done, for we never had a suspicion of 
 their presence until their evil lay as good as wrought 
 before our eyes. The first we noticed which 
 seemed out of the way and wrong was a spotted- 
 ness over the surface of the fields, and this came 
 on between one evening and the next. It looked 
 somewhat as if certain parts were ripening faster 
 than others, and to this we sanguinely attributed 
 the appearance, arguing, against our misgivings, 
 that variations in the character of the soil might 
 easily produce such an effect, but all the while we 
 could remember nothing of the sort from the pre- 
 
244 ^ Lord of Lands. 
 
 vious year, and what was even more disquieting, 
 the color which the wheat was taking on was not 
 so much the rich yellow we were watching for, as 
 it was a dull, rusty, ill-conditioned brown. At 
 length, after consulting at the edge of the field 
 during upwards of an hour and coming to no 
 satisfactory conclusion, we waded out into the thick 
 grain, though well knowing that wheat trodden 
 down at the verge of maturity will never lift its 
 head again, and we were thunderstruck to find that 
 the stalks where the brown spots were stood as 
 dead as hay, with the grain in the heads shriveled to 
 dust. It was a black mystery, for we could discover 
 no cause for the condition we found, until in our 
 search we examined the roots of the plants, and be- 
 held the ground alive and swarming with millions 
 upon millions of little red creatures, almost too small 
 to be seen, only that there was such a multitude of 
 them. It was only too evident that they were 
 gnawing the tender straw or sucking out the sap, 
 we could not make out which, by the failing light. 
 In a pale panic, for we saw the whole crop threat- 
 ened, we ran to the neighbors with our discovery, 
 thinking to get help of them, only to find them in 
 an equal quandary, with their wheat likewise brown 
 and spotted, and swarms of unheard-of bugs at 
 the roots of it. Nobody knew in the least what to 
 call them, or what to do to stop their ravages. We 
 stood about and measured with sinking hearts the 
 havoc which a few hours had wrought, and 
 dismally asked ourselves if anything would be left 
 in a few hours more. Some were for getting to 
 
A Lord of Lands. I45 
 
 work at once, by moonlight, to cut the grain, with 
 the notion of snatching thus at least a brand from 
 the burning, and then somebody questioned whether 
 the pests would not go to the corn if the wheat were 
 taken from them, and we knew not what was best. 
 We hoped, for men will hope to the last, that they 
 might be content with ruining us partly, but we 
 were blue enough, withal, for the wheat was pretty 
 much everything to us, we had suffered ourselves 
 to be that taken up with it. 
 
 Among the many pamphlets which we had got 
 from the experiment stations was a certain thick 
 treatise on injurious insects. This I had at my 
 house, since nobody else cared for it, intending 
 to read it thoroughly when I should have the leisure, 
 for it was full of pictures and terms which aroused 
 my curiosity, and now, coming home heavy with 
 anxiety for the wheat, and in no mind to sleep, 
 I picked it up and ran over the leaves in a desultory 
 way, wondering if there might not be in it some 
 light, with perhaps a suggestion of remedies. And 
 light, at least, there was. I had not turned fifty 
 leaves until I came face to face with a picture of 
 a stool of wheat with chinch-bugs working at it, 
 and I cried out with a cry of woeful recognition. 
 The picture by itself left me in no doubt, but as if 
 to make assurance doubly sure, a final test was 
 laid down, for the purpose of identification. 
 
 "When crushed," so ran the directions, "the 
 chinch-bug gives off an odor like that of a bed-bug, 
 to which, indeed, it is nearly related." 
 
 I read on a little, and learned how destructive the 
 
246 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 chinch-bug is, and how powerless we are to prevent 
 its ravages, and with that the hope that springs 
 eternal seized upon the possibility that our unwel- 
 come visitors might not be chinch-bugs after all, 
 but something more tolerable, and I sprang up, 
 though it was long past my usual hour of retiring, 
 and seized my hat, and was going out to make 
 final proof of the matter, and know the worst, 
 if there was nothing better to be known, when 
 Ludovika, disturbed no doubt by my unusual 
 manner, called out to me from the bedroom, 
 whither she had retired in order, for she suf- 
 fered nothing to invade her rest, and asked me 
 what was I about. She spoke sleepily, and I have 
 ever thought she was not quite aware of her bear- 
 ings, although I stopped long enough to tell her 
 plainly, if briefly, what I had found in the book, 
 and about the peculiarity by which chinch-bugs 
 were to be identified. 
 
 " I am going out," said I, with something of the 
 fierceness of desperation, *' to see if the creatures 
 smell like bed-bugs, when crushed." 
 
 Let me repeat that in my opinion Ludovika 
 was not fully awake. But at all events, she flew 
 into a towering passion. 
 
 " Who are you," she cried, vehemently, " to go 
 out before people and pretend that you know how 
 bed-bugs smell? The idea! There never was a 
 bed-bug in a house kept by me." 
 
 I saw how the land lay. 
 
 " To be sure," I replied. " I learned the smell 
 of the things before ever I was married." 
 
A Lord of Lands. 247 
 
 Well, the bugs were chinch-bugs, and our wheat 
 was doomed. Even the straw was worthless. And 
 we never sowed wheat again. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of pests, I think I 
 should tell the story of the ants and the molasses- 
 jug. Ants are pests, although they have good 
 traits, notably their fine industry and thriftiness 
 which have been an inspiration to mankind since 
 Solomon's time. I have known them to destroy 
 a whole planting of beets, by heaving the young 
 plants bodily out of the soil, and whatsoever ground 
 they choose for their abode is made pretty much 
 useless for other purposes. They are inordinately 
 fond of sweets, and in their search for these they 
 become a great trial to the farmer's wife, for they 
 will not be put off by any devices. Our pantry was 
 overrun with them, the first year, the house being 
 unplastered and affording easy entrance for such as 
 they, and they were in everything that held a trace 
 of sweetness, until at last we gave up to them in 
 despair, and fell back upon the thought that ants 
 are not poisonous and if we ate one now and then, 
 by mistake, it was no killing matter. And were we 
 not surprised and delighted when they suddenly 
 disappeared, without apparent reason, to the last 
 ant, as if the earth had opened and swallowed them 
 up? It was a mystery what became of them until 
 one day, it being in order to make soft gingerbread, 
 the girls were set to pour out the necessary molasses, 
 and poured out, not molasses, but a stream of dead 
 ants. That told the story. The capable fellows 
 had cut a clever little tunnel down the side of the 
 
^4^ A Lord of Lands. 
 
 cork, and through this every ant of the colony had 
 gone down to his joy and his destruction. They 
 stuck fast in their feast, and died as the fool dieth, 
 the victims of their own greediness. 
 
 Was it not in a way tragic? I mean the ending 
 of the ants, and not the loss of the molasses, which 
 was all that Ludovika could be induced to regret. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 Our material prosperity was like a slowly rising 
 flood, with conflicting winds playing over the sur- 
 face of it. There were fitful waves, which altern- 
 ately lifted us up and let us down, and sometimes 
 they made us wonder, just for the moment, how we 
 stood. But as often as we came to the ist of April, 
 and counted up, and looked back a year, we could 
 not doubt that we were gaining, on the whole. Our 
 worst year was the grasshopper year, and what we 
 made out then, you already know. Our next worst 
 year was the year of the chinch-bugs, and then there 
 was a cool thousand dollars for Beverly, besides the 
 interest, for w^e had our corn and our hogs left, and 
 our cows, and our unfailing resource, the swamps. 
 The story of our prosperity, in this material sense, 
 becomes monotonous, I am thinking, and I propose 
 to vary it with some consideration of our prosperity 
 in the things which are of the spirit. Be it known 
 that I am entering debated ground, here, for Eliza- 
 beth is against me, forthwith. 
 
 " You are bringing in too much moonshine and 
 not enough of the verisimilitude of a business suc- 
 cess," says she. 
 
 ''Ah. indeed?" says I, moved to admiration by 
 her fluent use of these lofty terms, but determined 
 withal not to be overawed. 
 
250 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 " Yes," says she, " your details lack the coher- 
 ency and consecutiveness without which they can 
 never be convincing." 
 
 " If you mean," says I, stoutly, with a feeling 
 that my superior age should in a manner counterbal- 
 ance the girl's superior learning, ^' if you mean that 
 I should be proclaiming to a listening and anxious 
 world how to get rich farming, I answer that I don't 
 profess to be a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of 
 fire by night. Not I. Plenty can tell them a great 
 deal better than I, if they wish to know how to get 
 rich. As for the moonshine, so be it. I am an old 
 man, and I love to talk, and I must tell my story in 
 my own way. Besides, is not moonshine nearly re- 
 lated to sunshine ? " 
 
 Now Elizabeth is forced to smile at this conceit. 
 While it may be true that the cultivation of the 
 mind has been the spoiling of some hearts, it has 
 not spoiled hers, and I know that I shall still have 
 her good counsel and loyal support, even though 
 she shall withhold her approval. 
 
 What I wish especially to tell you about is how we 
 played. All work and no play makes Jack a dull 
 boy, and we suffered no dull Jacks among us. 
 
 Our play-day was Sunday. Never once, from the 
 hour of our forlornly landing with our lumber, un- 
 til now, a matter of more years than I well like to 
 count up, although they have been happy years, take 
 them rough and running, and I have no wish to for- 
 get any of them, — never once, I say, has any of us 
 of the colony done a tap of work on the first day of 
 the week, further than was necessary to make our- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 251 
 
 selves and our beasts comfortable. I have seen our 
 hay lie out all day Saturday in a soaking rain, yet 
 left to take its chances until Monday, though the 
 Sunday between was bright and breezy, the very 
 perfection of a hay-day, such as would easily, with 
 a little help from us, have made good the damage of 
 the falling weather. That will show you how 
 strongly we felt about it, how thoroughly we be- 
 lieved in a Sabbath which should be indeed a Sab- 
 bath, and whereby we should invite our souls, as the 
 poet hath it, regardless of consequences. Six days 
 we labored and did all our work, for what was not 
 done in the six was never done. If sheep of ours 
 had fallen into a pit on a Sunday, I doubt not we 
 should have gone and lifted it out, but that would 
 have been out of pity for the sheep, and not in the 
 least with a view to conserving our property. It 
 has been a holy day with us, not in any strict or 
 formal religious sense, for I am bound to say that 
 as far as concerned worship and stated observances, 
 we were less rather than more religious, although 
 there have always been some few given to prayer 
 and pious meditation, but rather in the sense that 
 we sanctified the day to freedom. Only by this was 
 the freedom limited, namely, no man might work. 
 There was no positive law laid down, but the 
 sentiment which is the substance whereof law is 
 but the form, was strongly defined, and ready to 
 make itself felt should there be occasion. Had 
 anybody, man, woman, or even child, ventured to 
 engage in labor, except such labor as by common 
 consent was deemed indispensable, on this day, I 
 
252 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 know not what drastic penalty might not have been 
 inflicted. Practically, there was the smallest chance 
 of the occasion arising. The habit of taking the 
 day for play speedily vindicated itself by its advant- 
 ages, and became fixed, and needed no bolstering 
 by ordinance or statute. 
 
 That we had such a correct notion, to begin with, 
 of the importance of play, we owe to the trade un- 
 ions, to one or another of which in the old order we 
 all of us had belonged. It w^as always a trade union 
 ideal that a man should employ a third of his time 
 in recreation, putting it, in other words, on an equal 
 footing with work and rest. Our neighbors, who 
 had always been farmers and their fathers before 
 them likewise, were wholly new to this doctrine, 
 looking on play as a thing for children who were 
 not yet strong enough to work, and wholly beneath 
 the dignity of grown people. Is there anything 
 which leads poor foolish man to do sillier things 
 than this same sense of dignity, unless it be what we 
 call the sense of honor? When we looked about 
 us and saw exemplified in these good friends of 
 ours the aptness of the business of farming to make 
 drudges of such as practice it, we were more than 
 ever resolved not to neglect our play, come what 
 might. For it is not to be gainsaid that no business 
 is fuller of pressing duties, if only you choose to 
 let them press. A farmer's work is never done, 
 unless he sets his foot firmly down and commands 
 it to be done, for the time being, at all events. We 
 highly determined to have our work done at least 
 once every week, whether or no, let the emergency 
 
A Lord of Lands. 253 
 
 be what it would, short of a matter of life and death ; 
 and this determination we have never regretted, or 
 our having held rigidly to it through thick and thin, 
 Nor is it possible to accuse our Sabbath of having 
 cost us dearly in a worldly way. On the contrary, I 
 am convinced that it has gained us not a little, in 
 the most material sense. For it is a fact that the 
 man who of all the neighbors is most notoriously 
 given to working himself and his help on Sunday, 
 is forever behind, always late with his planting 
 and his reaping, whereas we are pretty well in 
 front of the procession, usually. I name no names, 
 nor do I profess to explain why this should be, 
 that six days are better than seven, when seven are 
 all we have. 
 
 Only in the sense that rest is a change of employ- 
 ment, rather than inert inactivity, was our Sunday 
 a day of rest. As a matter of fact, I daresay we 
 spent greater effort, in our Sunday doings, than in 
 the doing of any other day. We played hard. I 
 account myself a tolerably stanch man, and as able 
 as the next to stand up against the toil of the field, 
 but Sunday about laid me out. Come night, after 
 this happy day, I would crawl into my bed as tired 
 as a dog and aching in all my muscles, partly be- 
 cause of being less wonted to these activities, but 
 mostly because, in the spirit which gives play its 
 character, we were all the time going to the limit of 
 our strength, if not a little beyond. I assure you 
 there was no yawning or dozing about our corners 
 of a Sunday, nor had anybody to lie abed in the 
 morninor to kill dull time. From sun-up, or earlier, 
 
254 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 till sundown, or later, there was unceasing riot, fun 
 of one kind or another, depending somewhat on the 
 season and the weather, though we largely rose 
 superior to trifling circumstances of that sort, and 
 played ball with snow on the ground if we felt 
 like it. We were disorderly, but play without 
 disorder would be a pretty poor thing, I am think- 
 ing. We were extravagant, but extravagance is 
 the very life of it, as in order to learn you have only 
 to watch young lambs, or pigs, who know by 
 instinct how. 
 
 For all of us, young and old, was Sunday truly 
 the day of days, the day we took comfort in looking 
 forward to through the week, but the little folks, 
 what was it not to them? It was their day, in 
 an especial sense. They bossed the play, so to speak, 
 as they were the fittest to do, having, like the 
 lambs and the pigs, though in less degree, the 
 natural instinct for it, which we elders had unhappily 
 outgrown in large measure. We very soon dis- 
 covered that we achieved far more enjoyment if 
 we let the children lay out the business, choosing 
 what we should do, and assigning us our various 
 parts, which we performed with all possible 
 heartiness, for unless you are loyal to your leaders, 
 how can you hope to win? 
 
 The neighbors were a good deal astonished by 
 these proceedings, and, until they became more 
 used to us and our ways, they were given some 
 scandal. In their hearts they thought us trifling, 
 with too little gravity to engage effectively in the 
 stern battle of Hfe. Once, and I remember the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 255 
 
 incident perfectly, having recalled it to laugh over 
 it many and many a time, v^:e were m the midst ot 
 a game of ball, hot to the point of flame, with the 
 score very close and the outcome completely wrapped 
 in doubt, when who should drive up, in all their best 
 Sunday clothes, with a view to making a nice, 
 dignified afternoon call, but Tucker and his wife? 
 It fell out that I was myself at bat, in this juncture 
 or, rather, was just after having made a hit of such 
 a weak and indecisive sort that my reaching the 
 base in safety was at best very problematical, and 
 I was running for it, at the top of my speed, 
 straining every nerve, with no thought of the 
 appearances, while the others, some for me and some 
 against me, yelled like wild men. Mrs. Tucker 
 a person of strong views and quick discernment, 
 derived her own impressions, as was to be expected 
 and not being given to mincing matters, she spoke of 
 them, afterwards, with complete freedom, and her 
 remarks, since they were of a disparaging note, 
 although nothing for a man of sense to take the 
 least offense at, inevitably came to my ears for 
 there are always people who cannot abide to leave 
 anybody in ignorance of the ill things said about 
 him These remarks I will give you, with some 
 claim to exactness, for I am very familiar with 
 the good woman's manner, and find it in no small 
 degree entertaining, quite apart from the subject 
 matter of her discourse, which is almost always 
 
 worth while. ,, t, , ' u 
 
 " Well, I declare! " quoth she. If there wa n t 
 
 that there long-legged, spindle-shanked Fitzgerald, 
 
256 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 a-runnin' for all he was wuth, an' the rest on 'em, 
 a-screechin' like mad. You could 'a' played 
 checkers on that man's coat-tails he was a-goin' so. 
 Now, I call that pooty small business for a grown 
 man to be up to, an' a Sunday, too." 
 
 In general, Mrs. Tucker is a woman of uncom- 
 mon wisdom, and as good as gold, especially when 
 she can go her own way about it. As for the 
 desecration of the Sabbath, which she hinted at, 
 we heard very little about that. Many of the 
 neighbors were of the Puritan stock, and held some- 
 what to the traditions of the sect ; but after all they 
 had pretty much drifted over into an agreement with 
 the Savior, who assures us that the Sabbath was 
 made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 
 
 Ball was never my best-beloved game, however. 
 I had not the talent for it. Particularly, I could 
 not throw well enough to take my part with credit, 
 and for that reason I was always being relegated to 
 the obscure positions. I found it irksome to be sent 
 out to loiter about in the field, although it is true, 
 as the great Milton says, that they also serve who 
 only stand and wait. Throwing is a trick of gather- 
 ing the muscles of the arm and shoulder, and 
 this I never could get. I surmise that it is some- 
 thing you have to be born to, for boys of ten years, 
 with not half my strength, could beat me throwing. 
 I liked duck-on-the-rock much better. It has the 
 life in it, and calls for an alertness, and as many 
 may play as there are to play, and whatever glory 
 there is in it is more evenly distributed. Hilarity 
 is the breath of play, and it suffers where there arises 
 
A Lord of Lands. 257 
 
 such a rivalry as to provide a serious purpose. 
 Football is fine, too, played in the old, informal 
 way, with as many taking part as choose to come in. 
 But Sunday was by no means our only play-day. 
 In those early years there was a circus to go to 
 every year, and not seldom two of them. The 
 circuses then were relatively small affairs, just as 
 everything about was relatively small; although 
 we thought them big enough, in fact, stupendous, to 
 borrow their own description of themselves, in the 
 bills which they scattered through the country. But 
 they were not too big, and that was their vital 
 merit, to show in the small places, and so they 
 were more a part of the life of the plain people 
 who cannot go far from home. As often as a 
 circus pitched its tents within ten miles of us in 
 any direction, we dropped our work and took it 
 in, and made a day of it, and thought ourselves 
 doing well if we got back home again by midnight. 
 Now a circus never comes nearer to us than the city. 
 The small show has vanished from the face of the 
 earth and the places that have known it shall know it 
 no more forever, vastly to their regret, I think. 
 I, at least, am sorry. The old circus was better 
 than the thing it has given way to. There was less 
 to see, but there was a great plenty, and it was 
 truly a satisfaction to go away feeling that you had 
 seen everything. With but the one ring, every word 
 the clown spoke could be plainly heard, and his 
 wit fully enjoyed and taken to heart, whereas in 
 the new order, there is only the feeblest mockery 
 of a clown, who offers nothing but an inane 
 17 
 
258 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 pantomime, and the force even of this is much 
 impaired because of the bewildered onlooker having 
 all the time to wonder if he is not missing many 
 things which he would wish to see. Last year I 
 went to a circus of the latter day sort, with three 
 rings, and a spectacle called the Burning of Rome, 
 and while there was plenty to stare at, and be made 
 dizzy by, I thought my money ill spent after all, 
 and retain no recollection of it that does not confirm 
 me in thinking myself a fool for going. 
 
 Then there w-as the Fourth of July, always. We 
 made a great deal of the Fourth, less, I daresay, 
 out of patriotic regard for the nation's birthday, 
 than because the traditions with which long custom 
 has wreathed the occasion, give it an especial appeal 
 to the more or less gentle savage who lurks at 
 the bottom of our nature. It is gunpowder day, 
 and gunpowder delights the boy, and we were 
 all boys, regardless of age or sex, when it came to 
 play. We neglected none of the ordinary devices 
 for making the day memorable, and we did some 
 things, morever, which were not usual, at least in 
 the country. There being sixteen families of us, 
 and but one celebration, or what amounted to that, 
 for all, we could afford, poor as we were, to get 
 up something rather fine in the way of fireworks for 
 the evening. We raised a temporary platform at 
 the crossing of the roads, for the more effective 
 display of the pyrotechnics, and neighbors came 
 from miles away to witness the spectacle, and 
 thought themselves well paid for the trouble. But 
 there is always a serious difficulty in the way of 
 
A Lord of Lands. 259 
 
 fireworks on the Fourth of July, and no remedy 
 for it, so far as I can see. It consists in this, that 
 we have no genuine darkness at that time of the 
 year, to give the fire all its proper grandeur. The 
 sun does not set till near 8 o'clock, and even then he 
 seems to be lurking just below the horizon, as if he 
 suspected us of being about to do something of 
 interest, and was minded to wait and see it out. 
 There are times, to be sure, when the sky is over- 
 cast with clouds, but who wishes for darkness on 
 those terms? If the nation had only been born 
 about four months later, on the Fourth of Nov- 
 ember, say, the fireworks would show better, and 
 could be gotten out of the way without the need to 
 keep the young children up after their usual bedtime. 
 With all our Sundays and holidays and circus 
 days, we still found time to go hunting and fishing, 
 now and then, that is, such of us as cared for those 
 sports. I am no sportsman, myself, in that sense, 
 by reason of a certain defect of my nature, in virtue 
 of which I find no fun at all in taking the life of 
 a fellow-creature, even of the sort reckoned in- 
 ferior. Once upon a time, let me confess, for 
 the easement of my soul, in a moment of over- 
 mastering excitement, I fetched a gun -to shoot at 
 two poor little ducks which had taken refuge m 
 a bit of a pond formed by the heavy rains just 
 back of the barn. The preying instinct had 
 me, and it held me until just as I laid finger to 
 the trigger. Then it flashed over me that the ducks 
 were no doubt as fond of life as I was, and I 
 imagined myself in their place, and I hoped I 
 
2 6o A Lord of Lands. 
 
 might not hit them, for it was too late not to fire. 
 But hit them I did, and killed them both, and I 
 sorrowed over it, and never again had I the wish 
 to hunt. As for fishing, I held a line in my hand 
 one day, and a fierce little bull-head came and bit 
 at it, and I drew him up until I could see him, and 
 then he got off, and darted back down into the 
 depths, seemingly unhurt, to my vast relief, and 
 that is as near as I ever came to catching a fish. 
 Ludovika rails at me for my weakness. What were 
 those creatures made for, says she, if not to serve 
 the good pleasure of mankind? Was not Adam 
 given dominion over them, in so many words? To 
 this, being no adept in the fine points of theology, I 
 can answer nothing; nor, when she adds, with some 
 touch of irony, that I eat my share of the game and 
 the fish after they come to the table, am I able in 
 the least to defend myself. All I can say is, that if 
 such is sport, I am no sportsman. I was not made 
 with the taste for it. 
 
 The game was very plenty, at first. Prairie 
 chickens, noble birds, I call them, were to be met 
 with anywhere and everywhere, bursting up from 
 under your very feet almost in your dooryard. It 
 strikes me as a curious circumstance that whereas 
 these chickens, when they were plentiful, went in 
 braces or small coveys of three or four or five, now 
 that they are become scarce are never seen except in 
 great flocks of a hundred or more. I find a clue 
 to the mystery in the further fact that whereas 
 in the olden time, they were very approachable and 
 rose only when you were about to tread on them, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 261 
 
 now they will flush before even the dogs are aware of 
 their presence, and it is next to impossible to get 
 shot of them. The amount of it is, I daresay, that 
 they have been to school to their misfortunes, and 
 have learned the security of numbers, how that a 
 hundred of them together will take the alarm of 
 danger more promptly than a few. But for some 
 such precaution on the part of the birds, their 
 species must have been extinguished years ago. 
 Man makes laws in his prudence, but he hunts in 
 his greediness, and so his laws avail but little. 
 
 There was a variety of game, too, though mostly 
 of the feathered kind. We sometimes heard tell of 
 deer being seen not far away, but we never saw 
 any, and I have my doubts about our country, with 
 its comparatively smooth, level surface, and its 
 lack of anything that would pass in the eyes of 
 wild beasts for a forest, ever having been much 
 frequented by large game. However, the birds 
 were not altogether small, as an incident will serve 
 to show. One morning, very early, I do not clearly 
 recall whether it was the second year or the third, 
 but I think it was the third, because I do not 
 associate the matter at all with the grasshoppers 
 which gave our second year its character, I chanced 
 to look off over the out-iields, and spied what 
 seemed, in the distance, to be cattle, feeding in the 
 grain. Of course it would never do to have cattle 
 eating up the grain, and I called Richy in all haste 
 and sent him out to drive them off and put up the 
 fence where they had come in. The boy took his 
 gun with him, for he was come to that romantic 
 
262 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 age when the implements of destruction have their 
 greatest charm, and when ten pounds in the form 
 of a battered old musket, and five pounds more in 
 the form of ammunition for it, are no heavier than 
 a feather, and went as I bade him. After awhile I 
 heard him fire, but thought nothing of it, and indeed 
 had quite dismissed the thing from my mind, when, 
 some ten minutes later, he came back, all out of 
 breath with labor and excitement, and dragging after 
 him the most monstrous great bird. 
 
 " In the name of goodness ! " said I, taken 
 completely aback. "What have you there, boy? 
 An ostrich?" 
 
 It looked like nothing less, I assure you. 
 
 " This is one of the cattle you saw in the wheat," 
 said he. " Seven more of them got away." 
 
 " Which is fortunate," said I. " For what should 
 we ever do with seven more of them ? " 
 
 We gathered about and marveled over the great 
 fowl, which seemed more and more some fabulous 
 creature, like the roc of Sindbad the Sailor, and at 
 length, thinking the occasion justified it, we sent 
 over to the nearest neighbor's outside the colony, 
 and asked them would they call at their convenience, 
 and see what we had. They found their convenience 
 right away, their curiosity being touched, no doubt, 
 by our manner of putting the case, and came directly. 
 But the matter furnished no mystery for them. 
 The bird, they said, was a sandhill crane, not the 
 commonest of birds, but withal not very uncommon. 
 They assured us, in answer to our particular 
 inquiries, that a crane of any sort w^s unfit to eat. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 263 
 
 but we privately resolved, notwithstanding-, to make 
 trial for ourselves, encouraged in part by the great 
 bulk of the bird, which it seemed a sin to make no 
 use of, and in part by the fair look of the flesh in 
 the raw state, since it gave every promise of tender- 
 ness and flavor, and if, as we were informed, the 
 species adhered strictly to a vegetable diet, this was 
 an added point in its favor. We cooked the carcass 
 in a wash-boiler, for we had no other vessel big 
 enough, and found it sufficiently good eating, 
 much resembling domestic chicken and quite devoid 
 of the blackness and bitterness which are the mark 
 of wild meat in general. 
 
 Richy became a mighty hunter, in those days of 
 his young enthusiasm. I notice that now he has 
 boys of his own who are almost big enough to 
 shoot a gun, his interest lies in other things. But 
 he was keen enough to be always killing, then. I 
 have it to relate that he once killed a loon, for 
 which he was highly praised by all whose experience 
 gave their opinion weight, the loon being reckoned 
 a very w^ary bird and hard to come up with, and 
 able, moreover, as they aver who should know, to 
 dodge at the flash of a gun and get under water 
 out of harm's way before the shot can reach him. 
 Whether this is possible or not, I leave it to others 
 to say, keeping my own opinion to myself. At all 
 events, it is conceded a difficult feat to kill a loon. 
 Richy managed it by crawling a great distance, 
 further than I would care to walk upright on such 
 an errand, through a thicket which overhung the 
 cove where the birds were loitering, and they had 
 
264 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 no inkling of their danger until their fellow lay 
 dead among them. We were told that loons, like- 
 wise, were inedible, but the crane had made us wise 
 in our own conceit, and we dressed and cooked 
 Richy's specimen. But now report was right, for 
 the flesh proved very bad, invincibly tough, and with 
 a rancid, oily taste. For days and days the mate 
 of the dead loon hung about, calling in the most 
 doleful fashion, and its grief and constancy went 
 greatly to my heart. Even Richy, little given as he 
 was to sentiment, felt a sorrow for what he had 
 done, and frankly owned up to it, and never tried to 
 kill another loon. 
 
 Pigeons were commoner then than English spar- 
 rows are now, that is, in their season. We had 
 pigeons, broiled, fried and stewed, in pies and out, 
 until we fairly loathed them, delicate eating though 
 they are. I have known us to have a wash-tub 
 standing full to the brim with dressed pigeons, 
 covered over with cold water to keep them fresh un- 
 til we could get to eat them. There were days when 
 not a minute passed, between daylight and dark, but 
 you could look up and see pigeons flying over, in 
 their straggling, irregular way, now thickly and now 
 thinly, and often I have come upon a dead tree, 
 such as they had a fondness for, to that degree 
 occupied by them it was completely hidden, the 
 whole looking like an amazing pyramid of birds. 
 Whether they knew me to be unarmed, or divined 
 by some mysterious power of intuition that trait in 
 me which would not let me hurt them, they would sit 
 until I approached very near, and could look into 
 
A Lord of Lands. 265 
 
 their very eyes, and get a new notion of their 
 surpassing beauty, and the rich tints of their 
 feathers. When they rose at last, they made a noise 
 hke thunder with the beating of their powerful 
 wings. I have not seen a real pigeon in these parts 
 for years, now. They were all too easy to kill, 
 and that sealed their doom. 
 
 Some years, and I never could make out what it 
 was that determined one year from another in this 
 regard, the wood-ducks would flock among our 
 oaks, by the thousands, perhaps by the millions. 
 It was something to see, the way they came swirling 
 down, just at evening, as thick as snowflakes in a 
 storm. And one fall, there was an inundation, for 
 I can think of nothing fitter to call it, of gray 
 squirrels. The trees swarmed with them, and they 
 kept Pal, the dog, in such a constant turmoil of 
 mind by their impudent chattering and defiant whisk- 
 ing down into his very face with their great bushy 
 tails, that I am prepared to believe his heart was 
 affected and his days shortened. In his eagerness 
 to get after these vivacious little beasts, he made 
 trial at last to cHmb the trees, and cut no bad figure 
 at it, in view of his limitations, although he was 
 never in the least nearer to catching the squirrels 
 than he would have been had he stayed in his 
 natural element. Pal's difficuhy, it may be re- 
 marked in passing, was not so much in getting up 
 as in getting down, figuring a somewhat common 
 difficulty with mankind, perhaps. He could climb 
 to a considerable height, where the low branches 
 favored him, with surprising deftness, but he never 
 
266 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 found a better way of descending than to fall, out- 
 right, only saving himself as he might by clutching 
 desperately at the rough bark with his claws and 
 teeth. He looked very comical at these times, for 
 all the danger he was in of being seriously maimed, 
 and we had many a hearty laugh at his expense. 
 Richy shot squirrels, and they were good to eat, 
 when highly seasoned, provided you could dismiss 
 from your mind the thought that you were eating 
 small cats, than which they resembled nothing more. 
 
 Do I make too much of the game? Very likely. 
 I drift off on the current of my own interest, and 
 nothing interests me more than these birds of the 
 air and beasts of the field. 
 
 The young people had read in pleasant stories 
 about the foreign fashion of mingling play with 
 work, and among the elders, man and woman, there 
 were those who, having been born and partly reared 
 abroad, could recall something of the practice out 
 of their experience, and since it had a genial aspect 
 when glossed over by the arts of fiction, and was 
 fondly thought of as part and parcel of a distant 
 past by those who had direct knowledge of it, 
 there sprung up the notion that it was a very good 
 thing, and we went in for it, and in particular we 
 endeavored to make a great frolic out of the harvest- 
 ing and threshing. But it turned out a complete 
 failure, as even the most sanguine and romantic of us 
 had to confess, and I think I can understand why. 
 The world, our part of it, anyway, has outgrown that 
 sort of thing. We have become a man, as it were, 
 and put away childish trifling, and I do not mean by 
 
A Lord of Lands. 267 
 
 that to say we are necessarily better off. But the 
 fact stands accompHshed, for better or for worse. 
 What is writ by destiny it not to be washed away 
 with water, even though the water is all tears of re- 
 gret. We are a commercial people. The atmosphere 
 of poetry is lacking. No man who is in any sense of 
 the age is willing to stop work in the midst of a busy 
 day, to dance a measure on the green, however good 
 it might be for him. The most you can expect of 
 him is that he will set aside a time for play, as well 
 as a time for work, and far too often he has gone 
 beyond even that. Modern work does not mix with 
 play any more than oil with water. Work is be- 
 come a tremendously serious matter, with us. 
 
 Nor is it to be overlooked as a circumstance of 
 no significance that our fathers, who succeeded in 
 playing as they worked, invariably resorted to the 
 strong waters to impart a fictitious gayety. There 
 is nothing like the heightening of wine to make 
 a man think he is enjoying himself, and where the 
 stuff is drunk in moderation, I see no harm in it. 
 But here once more we moderns are at a disad- 
 vantage. Whether because of our nervous energy 
 or what not, we know not how to be moderate. 
 Nothing will do us but the ardent spirits of whiskey, 
 nor can we be content with the mild intoxication 
 which gently exalts a man and leaves him no very 
 deep abyss to fall into when it shall have passed. 
 Instead of that, we drink, if we drink at all, until we 
 are clean mad, and fit only for works of deviltry, 
 We men of the colony all knew this only too well, 
 and we were unanimous in the resolution never to 
 
268 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 let a drop of liquor of any sort be brought on our 
 land, not even beer. 
 
 But even if, by some miracle of grace, we could 
 have reverted to the childlike simplicity of the an- 
 cients, and become as capable as they of delighting in 
 small joys, and of drinking temperately, how should 
 we ever make anything like play of our tasks, in 
 the face of the pitiless machinery by means of which 
 those tasks had chiefly to be done? There was 
 room for romance, nay a place inviting it to come 
 and tarry, when everything was done by hand, in 
 a leisurely way. But where is the romance to come 
 in, now, when, in the place of the dear old flail, 
 which a man might lay down and take up at his 
 pleasure, there is the monstrous howling, grinding, 
 gnashing thresher, which goes from morn till night 
 and never stops to rest, its gaping maw clamoring 
 incessantly to be fed with sheaves of grain, asking 
 the help of but few men as compared with the old- 
 time threshing-crew, but forcing those few to strain 
 and strive till they are ready to sink down. Are 
 we better oflF, will you tell me, for the enterprise 
 which has, in a way, made us slaves; for the 
 ingenuity which has laid it upon us to be all the 
 time measuring our endurance against the endurance 
 of oak and iron, and our strength against the 
 strength of steam? It is on my lips to answer no, 
 a thousand times no, and then I wonder if I know 
 whereof I speak. If we are not as happy as our 
 simpler fathers were, it is perhaps our own fault. 
 
 Understand, with all our good fun, we had 
 nevertheless our periods of darkness, when, as the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 269 
 
 saying goes, the wind blew from the east. Common 
 people will get out of sorts, whether or no, and we 
 w^ere common people, else this story would not be 
 worth the paper it is written on, even though I 
 am writing it mostly on sheets of wrapping-paper 
 thriftily saved up by Ludovika during many years, 
 not because she foresaw any use for the stuff, but 
 because she was unable to throw it away. Plenty 
 often enough the air w^ould get itself charged with 
 bitterness, and the spirit of discord would creep in, 
 like a thief in the night, to steal away our peace. 
 And the worst of it w^as that there never was any 
 reason for such feeling, not the slightest. In the 
 division of the fruits of the earth, in the allotment 
 of the work, we never had as much as the shadow of 
 a difference, for we could all be fair and generous if 
 we had time to bethink us what we were about. I 
 have somewhere read that the little crews which 
 man the lighthouses along the coast, three or four 
 persons in a place at most, and often only two, 
 completely cut off from communication with the 
 shore, have to be changed every few weeks, as a 
 measure of safety, for the reason that whereas these 
 men are good friends when they are new to one 
 another, they soon say all that they have to say, and 
 fall into a silence, and become morose, and at length 
 conceive for one another a genuine aversion, apt 
 enough to lead to violence. It grows out of the 
 uncomfortable sense of satiety, I fancy, and satiety 
 may well have been what ailed us. There were 
 more of us, to be sure, and we had not the 
 melancholy presence of the ocean to weigh us down, 
 
270 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 but instead a various aspect of cheerfulness, and by 
 that we never got so bad ; but there was no denying 
 that we did grow sick of one another, and I have 
 known the situation to be no better than tickHsh, 
 what with the danger of a falHng out over some 
 trivial matter and of enmities arising out of nothing, 
 yet not easily to be smoothed away. A very little 
 sting, falling suddenly on the raw of ill-humor, will 
 suffice to upset most anybody and put him in the 
 way of doing very foolish things. 
 
 I have spoken of the part which the little children 
 had in holding us faithful to our best interests when 
 the homesickness oppressed us, and now I have 
 it to say that they served us equally well, in their 
 unconscious way, in the emergency of the east wind, 
 as often as it blowed. They were an element of 
 peril, too, for they were always falling out, among 
 themselves, and giving up to the stormiest outbursts 
 of passion, coming often to blows, and sometimes 
 serious blows, too; and their battles, trifling though 
 they were, were sufficient occasion for resentment on 
 the part of parents who were in the mood and look- 
 ing for trouble, as the saying is. Mothers, and 
 fathers, too, would dash out, and part the combat- 
 ants, and sputter hateful things the while, and go 
 back home feeling ill-used and ugly; but do you im- 
 agine the youngsters would let it go at that? Not 
 they. Though there lay upon them the stern inter- 
 dict of their elders, whereby they were never again to 
 play with one another, or even so much as speak 
 with one another, in an hour's time, or less, they 
 would have gotten together in some way, and be- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 271 
 
 come as good friends as ever. They shamed the 
 spite which nursed itself and would not be reconciled. 
 Before the tears of wrath were dry upon their 
 cheeks, their eyes were being lighted up with smiles 
 of amity and forgiveness, and so they taught us 
 our lesson. Out of the mouths of babes and 
 sucklings He speaketh His wisdom. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 By the end of the third year, to such a pitch of 
 assurance had we come, not only by reason of our 
 prosperity, which was not contemptible, but as 
 well because of our trials, since we had comfortably 
 survived these, severe though they were, — such a 
 confidence had we acquired, I repeat, that we were 
 minded to work no longer in common, and accord- 
 ingly we divided up the remaining debt, giving each 
 man his equal share, to wrestle with henceforth by 
 himself. There was something of a necessity for 
 this step, arising out of the inevitable differences of 
 opinion among us as to the proper way to do about 
 debt. I say inevitable, because a man's attitude 
 toward debt is largely a matter of his temperament, 
 and men's temperaments are as various as their 
 faces. Some of us were for paying off as fast 
 as possible, while others were for taking care 
 of the interest and a little more, reserving the 
 balance of our earnings for betterments and es- 
 pecially for the purchase of stock and improved 
 appliances. Certain peoples, and I have the Ger- 
 mans and Scandinavians particularly in mind, are 
 born, as it would seem, with a horror of debt. 
 They attach a disgrace to it, and can never rest 
 easy under it. They will do without things they 
 
A Lord of Lands. 273 
 
 really need rather than go in debt for them, 
 no matter how good a prospect they have of being 
 able to pay in due time, and as long as they owe 
 a penny they deem themselves bound not to spend 
 a penny for anything else. I can respect their 
 sentiment, but I cannot participate in it. Is not the 
 man who will not avail himself of his blessings, 
 and surely commercial credit is one of ours, touched 
 with a species of insanity? Somebody says that 
 virtue is not the opposite of vice, but the mean 
 between two vices. Deliver me from the deadbeat, 
 by all means, but likewise deliver me from the man 
 who thinks of a debt as a pestilence which will 
 destroy him body and soul. We had several of 
 him, with us, and that meant there was only one 
 thing to do, namely, separate, agree to disagree, 
 and each go his own way. Otherwise there must 
 be constant friction, a constant overruling of a 
 minority by a majority. The division was pro- 
 ductive of a better feeling all around, how much 
 better we would not have thought possible before- 
 hand. Each man shouldered his load with a 
 cheerful sense of independence which was worth 
 more to him, I fancy, than the sense of collective 
 security which it displaced. Nature makes the fam- 
 ily the social unit, and it is pretty hard to improve on 
 her arrangements, I find. 
 
 Bear in mind, however, that we were not making 
 an end of all community. In any rural neighbor- 
 hood, as I have good reason to testify, since I have 
 had endless benefit of it, there will always be more 
 or less community, and among us, moreover, there 
 18 
 
274 ^ Lord of Lands. 
 
 was especially the strong community of spirit and 
 hope, by which we had a great interest in one 
 another's welfare, and a great wish for the success 
 of all. We have always owned many things of the 
 nature of chattels in common, to our advantage, 
 for thus we enjoy facilities ordinarily denied farmers 
 of our class. No farmer with but forty acres could 
 afford to own fine breeding stock, by himself, or 
 the most approved machinery, which is very 
 expensive, but all these we have, and feel them no 
 burden, since we have to pay but a sixteenth of the 
 cost of them. I may describe our practice, perhaps, 
 as a mixture of community and severalty, as much 
 of each as makes for thorough comfort and 
 convenience, without regard to any fine adherence 
 to doctrines. 
 
 Here, then, we will leave our neighbors to their 
 privacy, prying no further into their affairs, except 
 as these may touch the house of Fitzgerald, whose 
 chronicles shall concern us henceforth. Of the 
 colony at large let it sufiice to say that there has 
 been no time when blessed plenty, still blessed 
 though sometimes coarse and rude, has not dwelt 
 among us. If luxury has passed us by, I, for one, 
 am not sorry. At all events, the ravening wolf, 
 which, if not at our very doors, in the old order, 
 was never further away than the next corner, we 
 have known no more, and though our success com- 
 prised no more than that, it were worth while, I 
 think. 
 
 Our first independent venture was the purchase of 
 a big bay mare, which we named Viola, or, rather, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 275 
 
 the girls named her, and the rest of us acquiesced, 
 though Richy had a wish to call her Babe, as being 
 a name more readily spoken and otherwise fitter, in 
 his estimation. Viola was powerful and willing 
 and highly responsive to favors, and became withal 
 like one of the family, her sympathy with our 
 undertakings in which she was asked to assist was 
 that marked. Many is the acre of land I have 
 plowed with Viola. In our light soil, which turns 
 easily, and should never be deeply stirred lest the 
 barren gravel of the subsoil be brought to the sur- 
 face, she would pull a twelve-inch plow, with now 
 and 'then a short breathing-spell, if the weather was 
 warm, and the occasional stimulation of a nubbin 
 of corn, such as I provided myself with a good 
 supply of whenever we fared forth, and of so 
 obliging a temper was she that I never had to use a 
 rein with her, although a horse plowing alone has 
 especial need of guidance, owing to the hard 
 necessity of keeping up out of the furrow. Even a 
 stupid horse, which Viola never was, has sufficient 
 discernment to discover very presently that veering 
 ofif toward the plowed land will serve to make the 
 draft lighter, however little it hastens the completion 
 of •the work, but Viola had a true sense of her 
 responsibilities and was never false to them. No 
 horse knew better than she what was the effect of 
 veering off, but she was above shirking. It was 
 not in the plowing, however, or in any work about 
 the place that Viola and I were associated most, but 
 in the going to and fro with the truck for market, 
 for there never was a week, in those early years, 
 
276 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 that I did not drive to the city once, and more 
 often twice than once, and not seldom three times, 
 that is, in the gardening season, when we had 
 truck to sell. It was a long, weary road, sixteen 
 miles of it to be doubled over, through heavy sand 
 much of the way, and we met with very Httle 
 company beyond each other. Here again Viola 
 showed her admirable sense of duty and her high 
 devotion, for as often as she came to the tolerable 
 spots in the road she would break into a trot with- 
 out a word of urging from me, and keep up the 
 pace until the billows of sand engulfed the wheels 
 anew, and pulled her back like a clog. I learned to 
 place great reliance on her understanding, almost 
 as if she were human, and she never failed me, I 
 believe, anyway, never in aught of consequence. 
 Once she saved me from being robbed and perhaps 
 murdered, though whether she clearly divined the 
 fearful possibilities of the case or acted more out 
 of some caprice, I leave you to decide after you have 
 heard the story. We were jogging along towards 
 home in the early autumn twilight, having sold our 
 load for a snug sum which I had in my pocket, 
 when suddenly two men stepped out in the road 
 just ahead, and stood waiting for us to come up in 
 a manner which left me in no doubt that their in- 
 tentions were of the worst. I was frozen with 
 fear, for I was quite unarmed, and if I had car- 
 ried a whole arsenal I could have made no ef- 
 fective use of it, I was trembling that violently 
 in every limb. I should have submitted to their 
 will, like the dumb ox to the ax, but for Viola. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 277 
 
 As a general thing, she was slow to take fright, 
 having a rational turn of mind, but now, at sight 
 of the men standing in the road, she stopped 
 short, threw her head high up in the air, snorted 
 once or twice, and then, with a precipitation 
 which all but threw me off the seat, she sprang 
 forward, with the bits in her teeth, as frantic- 
 ally as any runaway you ever saw, and swept 
 past those men like the wind. They waved 
 their hands and shouted, but they made no imp-res- 
 sion on Viola. She would have knocked them down 
 and trampled them under her great feet if they had 
 not dodged back out of her way, at the last mo- 
 ment. When she had run in this fashion upwards 
 of a mile, she slowed down, of her own will, and 
 jogged on as usual. 
 
 I remember Viola wath unbounded esteem, and 
 I am reluctant to set down what Ludovika was 
 never tired of saying of her, namely, that she was 
 perfectly safe for a woman to drive. Beyond a 
 doubt Ludovika meant well, by this, but I consider 
 the implication degrading. How a horse can be 
 perfectly safe for a woman to drive and retain any 
 shred of generous spirit, is beyond me. 
 
 Except when we were in a great hurry, we did 
 our heavy work at home with oxen. These were 
 a yoke which Richy had acquired, out of the pleni- 
 tude of bull-calves, and broken with infinite pains, 
 until they were the very pattern of docihty. The 
 girls, who had a passion for naming things in a 
 romantic way, as witness Ingomar and Viola, 
 were for calling the oxen Damon and Pythias, in 
 
278 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 token of their steadfast friendship for each other, 
 as especially shown in their touching way, when 
 they were turned out loose in the pasture and might 
 go wherever they liked, of remaining nevertheless 
 side by side, as if they were still yoked, and of 
 never lying down at night unless closely back to 
 back, one facing in one direction and one in the 
 other (an inherited instinct, some say, which still 
 mounts guard against the stealthy approach of a 
 foe long since extinct), but Richy had a mind of 
 his own, and held to it, exercising the right of 
 proprietorship, and the cattle w^ere named Buck and 
 Bright. I love oxen. There is a solace and uplift 
 for a fretful man in their steady patience. Nor can 
 I think it is out of stupidity and insensibility, as 
 some declare, that oxen are patient. I greatly pre- 
 fer to attribute it to their higher appreciation 
 of the eternal verities, and they put me in mind of 
 those Brahmin monks w^ho find heavenly peace in 
 persistent meditation. Certainly Buck and Bright 
 were not lacking in intelligence, and in one of the 
 circuses we went to there were two steers which 
 performed incredible tricks, and all wdth an air of 
 discrimination, showing what the species is capable 
 of. 
 
 Richy is fond of oxen, too, but his grounds are 
 not my grounds. 
 
 " The great advantage of an ox over a horse," 
 says he, " is that when an ox has outlived his use- 
 fulness, you can still eat him, but a horse has to go 
 to the crows.'' 
 
 This strikes me as extremely shocking. Richy 
 
A Lord of Lands. 279 
 
 IS like his mother, in much. And by the way, I 
 have an especial reason for saying so. In the fall 
 of the first year, there was a great amount of corn 
 to husk, and in those days husking had to be 
 done by hand. It was grievous work for us, soft 
 as we were, and the harsh, dry stalks soon had our 
 fingers in a most painful state. Richy was just 
 turning thirteen, but he was willing to be thought 
 a man when there was work to do, and he husked 
 with the rest, and never a whimper escaped him 
 until Ludovika's sharp motherly eyes saw that some- 
 thing was wrong, and with that she made the boy 
 own up that he was being kept awake night after 
 night with the aching of his lacerated hands. I 
 was vastly pleased, when she told me of it, thinking 
 of the fine spirit of the fellow, rather than his 
 sufferings. 
 
 " It's the true Irish grit," says I. 
 
 " And why," says Ludovika, with a wonderful 
 quickness, for her, ** is it always the Irish of him? " 
 
 Her rebuke was only just, and so I write it 
 down, here and now, and wish there may be no 
 misunderstanding about it, that Richy is in much 
 like his mother. 
 
 Have you ever thought how that it is the trials 
 and the adversities which give spice to our recollec- 
 tions, as if, in the final analysis, it were they which 
 made life worth living? It is not the bounty of that 
 wonderful first year's harvest which I recall most 
 fondly, but precisely those sore fingers, though the 
 misery was no small thing in the time of it. Is 
 it because trials endured are a species of compliment 
 
2 8o A Lord of Lands. 
 
 to our great qualities, and flatter our vanity, 
 unconsciously ? 
 
 But the great staples of agriculture, wheat and 
 corn and oats and rye and potatoes, these are not 
 for the forty-acre fellows. Because they are the 
 prime necessities of life, they will always be com- 
 mon and cheap, relatively speaking, and the race to 
 make them still commoner and cheaper is too hot 
 for the little men. The big fish (if 1 can make my- 
 self clearer by mixing my metaphors, who am I to 
 let myself be frightened out of it?) cut under the 
 small fry every time. Ten thousand acres in a 
 field permit of economies that put ten acres in a 
 field quite out of the running. Wheat we had to 
 give up, willy nilly; and corn, though it served us 
 grandly in those first years of uncertainty, and 
 though it is a universal food of the highest merit, 
 we let go likewise, in time, pretty much because we 
 found ourselves working, by little and little, into 
 better things. 
 
 By better things I mean, of course, more 
 remunerative things. As regards real worth, pop- 
 corn is not for a moment comparable with field- 
 corn. Yet popcorn has yielded us far and away 
 a greater profit than field-corn in its stead could 
 possibly have yielded. 
 
 The neighbors laughed when we planted a whole 
 acre to popcorn. They thought we intended eating 
 so much, ourselves, and when we told them we 
 expected to sell it, they laughed the more. 
 
 *' Why don't you raise pigs for the whistles their 
 tails will make? " said Tucker, in a vein of friendly 
 
A Lord of Lands. 281 
 
 sarcasm, indicating his contempt of an undertaking 
 which looked to supplying the market with a mere 
 frivolity. Of course we could afford to let them 
 laugh. Demand is demand, and it creates value, 
 whether it is based on foolishness or wisdom, and 
 that we knew, and only wondered at our neighbors 
 in their blindness. 
 
 The project originated with the children. They 
 were fond of popcorn, as the young always are, I 
 believe, and one of the prospects which had all along 
 illuminated the new future to them was the prospect 
 of raising the cherished comestible and having all 
 they could eat of it, at any time. They had their 
 patch of popcorn from the beginning, a few feet 
 square of it. But there came a day, as we sat in 
 family council, considering ways and means, when 
 one of the girls (which one has never been settled, 
 and I cannot take it upon myself to decide a point 
 of such delicacy) was moved to express a curiosity 
 as to whence came the vast quantities of popcorn 
 sold in the city, at the exorbitant price of five cents 
 for a small bag, which, in the raw state, would not 
 be much beyond a teaspoonful of kernels. With 
 that, two or three spoke up, all at once, and asked 
 why could not we raise popcorn to sell, and it 
 needed no more to give Ludovika, with her quick 
 insight for commercial possibilities, her inspiration. 
 
 ** Why not? " quoth she, and looked at me, where- 
 upon I caught the inspiration, too, and the upshot 
 was that instead of a mere nook of popcorn, we 
 planted, as I say, a whole acre. 
 
 As often happened, before and after, our good. 
 
282 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 though stern teacher, Adversity, had to step in and 
 set us right before we got fairly under way. Our 
 first popcorn, that is, our first on a large scale, we 
 planted in the out-fields, alongside our field-corn, 
 and the two were in blossom together, and they 
 mixed, and when we came to make trial of our 
 popcorn, it would not pop with proper vivacity. 
 We had missed the target, this first shot, but we had 
 got the range. The next year we planted five acres 
 of popcorn at the furthest corner of our land, 
 sufficiently remote from its kindred to preclude evil 
 communication, and, moreover, in order to make 
 doubly sure of results, we held off with the planting 
 some ten days, in order that the two species should 
 not be in blossom at the same time, and now we 
 hit the bull's-eye, plump in the center. We har- 
 vested something like fifty bushels to the acre, 
 counting thirty-five pounds to the bushel, cobs and 
 all, and the quality was unexceptionable, and the 
 market absorbed it without demur at three cents a 
 pound. I showed Tucker the figures, and he 
 laughed, but rather in a sheepish way, I thought, 
 and without a word about pig's tails and whistles. 
 You may say I was unwise not to keep our success 
 a secret, lest we invite competition, but I assure you 
 there was no great danger, such is the reluctance 
 with which the average farmer of the old school 
 takes up with new wrinkles. We still stick to pop- 
 corn, and find it worth while, though not always a 
 distinguished winner. One year the price rose to 
 five cents, but the yield was short, and another year, 
 when the yield was gigantic, the price sunk to a 
 
A Lord of Lands. 283 
 
 cent a pound, but even at that low rate we were 
 reaping upwards of thirty dollars from an acre of 
 ground, not a bad figure at all. 
 
 But it was the home plot, though there was 
 hardly more than four acres of it, after you counted 
 out the space occupied by the buildings, which did 
 the wonders for us, and this was owing mostly, 
 let me confess it at once and get it off my mind, to 
 Ludovika. Germans, and especially German women, 
 garden by instinct, much as a duck swims, and 
 Ludovika is no exception, for all the feeling she 
 formerly had against husbandry. Once, in the 
 midst of her triumphs, I asked her could she be the 
 same woman who had declared she would rather 
 be dead than live on a farm, and she answered that 
 she could be, and was, that only the wisest of men 
 knew himself, and she was not even a wise woman, 
 and I saw she was pained, and I never spoke of the 
 matter again. But I often thought of it, and how 
 that many another woman, similarly disposed against 
 farming, might get to know herself better, on trial. 
 But at all events Ludovika's aptitude for growing 
 the more delicate edibles rose to the level of an 
 art. The coarse and common business of raising 
 potatoes and corn and the like she seemed in a 
 way to scorn, as a goldsmith might scorn wagons 
 and plows. Salads, and pickles, and relishes, the 
 things which in strictness are worth nothing, since 
 a man would soon starve to death with nothing else 
 to eat, but are none the less eagerly sought after, 
 these Ludovika made her study, and about every- 
 thing she laid her hand to yielded back a quick 
 
284 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 profit. Her knowledge of the whims and fancies of 
 city people, partly by her experience and partly by 
 her delicate intuition, was exhaustive and exact, 
 and never was knowledge more deserving of the 
 name of power. If I were to describe her method 
 in a word, I should call it a method of details. 
 *' Despise not the day of small things," she would 
 retort, as often as her minute care for the trifles 
 moved me to some outburst of impatience, and that, 
 I should add, was less and less often as time passed 
 and it slowly dawned upon me that these very 
 trifles, as they seem in themselves, were truly 
 important in virtue of the whims and fancies 
 aforementioned. I have known her to work an 
 hour over the mere arrangement of the load I 
 was to market, altering and altering, until she had 
 the look of it exactly to her liking. " The first 
 impression is half the battle," quoth she, and truer 
 word never was spoken. I can testify that the sale 
 of the truck was promoted by these devices, and in 
 no small measure, either. Our vegetables were no 
 whit better than plenty which were offered alongside 
 them, but they were displayed with such a nice 
 eye for effect that people derived the notion they 
 were something entirely different and greatly 
 superior. 
 
 Moreover, this woman found herself endowed 
 with a most remarkable grasp of certain evasive 
 distinctions of color and form. I doubt if the 
 equal of it could easily be found, though that may 
 be the opinion of my pride, since she is my wife. 
 I think particularly of the cucumber pickles and the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 285 
 
 onion pickles, what great things this trait of 
 Ludovika's enabled ns to do with them. We would 
 let the cucumbers grow until the largest of them 
 had come to the length of a couple of inches or 
 so, and after that we would pick the vines over 
 every day, taking whatever was of pickling size. 
 My way would have been to throw these cucumbers 
 together indiscriminately, for they looked pretty 
 much alike to me, but Ludovika's eye separated 
 them into no fewer than twelve sorts, differing not 
 only in size but in shape, and she carefully selected 
 them, with the help of the children, who under her 
 directions soon became almost as adept as herself, 
 and you would hardly conceive, unless you were to 
 see the result for yourself, to what an extent the 
 discrimination bettered the appearance of the stock. 
 We laid them down in brine, in wooden firkins 
 which had been scoured till they shone, the fat 
 cucumbers in one firkin, the lean in another, the 
 crooked here and the straight there, not tumbled 
 in to lie as they fell, but placed in perfect order, 
 according to some design which suggested it- 
 self to the master spirit (a favorite design, where 
 the cucumbers were rather long and slender, 
 as the most of them were, was to lay them with 
 their small ends all pointing exactly to the 
 center) and I tell you they were not to be passed 
 by lightly. People bought them eagerly and went 
 away believing they had secured something very 
 new and very exclusive (there's a double charm in 
 the sweetness which nobody else can enjoy.) and 
 often they would come back and tell me how that 
 
286 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 they tasted better than any pickles they had ever 
 eaten, and ask me, with a show of anxiety, when 
 I was Hkely to have more. Was it any business 
 of mine to be arguing them out of illusions which 
 they enjoyed and I profited by? We had even better 
 success with the onions, which could be made to 
 look a choicer article, in their neat glass bottles. 
 They were in assorted sizes, too, and never an onion 
 went in unless it was cleanly formed and white and 
 firm. There was every now and then a very dwarf 
 onion, made such by the accidents of light soil and 
 thick sowing, and by nothing else in the world. 
 They were hardly bigger than a marrowfat pea, 
 and, if the truth must be told, of a strong, bitter 
 taste. I was for casting them out, as of no value. 
 
 " Why," I demanded, " should people ever buy 
 the likes of them? " 
 
 " Because they look so cunning, of course," said 
 Ludovika, loftily. 
 
 And do you know, the dear, stupid public fairly 
 raved over those little onions, and cheerfully paid a 
 double price for them? Even the other gardeners 
 who frequented the market took them to be some 
 new and mysterious variety, and tried to sound me 
 as to where the seed was to be got, whereupon I 
 assumed an air of impenetrable secrecy, and hope 
 to be forgiven for it. 
 
 Here is Ludovika's formula, and I submit it is 
 pretty shrewd: 
 
 " People eat whatever they like the taste of, to 
 be sure, but they taste of whatever they like the 
 looks of, and if they like the looks of a thing very, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 287 
 
 very much, there's not much danger but it will taste 
 all right." 
 
 Her supremest achievement, however, was the 
 berries. It took her no longer than one season 
 to find out that the wild berries, and especially the 
 wild strawberries, have a flavor all their own, which 
 a little imagination might render finer than that 
 of the garden berry, anyway, the imagination of 
 city people, so open to the suggestion that rarity 
 and delicacy are one and the same thing. Ludovika's 
 first notion was to gather wild berries as they grew, 
 and sell them as such, and while they went off well, 
 at a fancy figure, the labor of picking them, scattered 
 here and there and everywhere, as they were, was 
 too great. Her next notion was to transplant a lot 
 of the wild vines to our plot, with the thought that 
 cultivation might render them more productive, 
 without divesting the fruit of its peculiar flavor, 
 and now she was on the right track. Away out 
 at the far corner of the section, under the biggest 
 jack-oak I ever saw anywhere, the children had 
 found wild berries of unusual traits, growing on 
 stout vines fit to stand the grief of transplantation, 
 long, slender berries, of a gorgeous deep purple 
 color, and having a taste which may or may not 
 have resembled that of the drug rhubarb, that most 
 atrocious of all medicaments, and at all events was 
 undeniably distinctive, and I will ask you, as I 
 asked my own conscience in that day, if people are 
 rightly induced to like pickled olives, what crime 
 was there in inducing them to like these berries? 
 The vines throve in the garden, and bore lavishly, 
 
288 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 and all went well, for when I carried the berries to 
 market and boldly asked fifteen cents a box for 
 them, whereas the best of the improved berries 
 brought seven or eight, they made a veritable sensa- 
 tion, and after a little a grocer took all we had, and 
 we sent them to him by express every morning. The 
 wild raspberries we transplanted, too, but they were 
 not an equal success. For some reason which I 
 could not fathom, people chose to think them no bet- 
 ter than the berries they could buy for half the price. 
 Whims are whims, and you have to be prepared to 
 get the heavy end of the club now and then. 
 
 Always with an eye strictly to business, Ludovika 
 took up bushes of the wild rose and set them out in 
 the garden, likewise, not thinking to improve the 
 flowers, for that were impossible, but rather that 
 she might have them handy, and she made up sweet 
 little sprays of these, along with just the right 
 amount of greenery, and wet moss to keep them 
 fresh, for nothing wilts like a wild rose, and sent 
 them along by me to be given away to our good 
 customers. These roses, and the tons and tons of 
 wild flowers of other kinds which I have also carried 
 away, purchased good will, and I doubt not brought 
 back many a customer whom we otherwise might 
 never have seen again, for they conveyed a grateful 
 whiff of the woods and fields, such as the inhabitants 
 of the town, jaded with artificiality, could not well 
 help but be pleased with. Considering them rightly, 
 with all their remote effects in view, I should say 
 the wild flowers I took along to give away were 
 quite as profitable as any freight I carried. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 289 
 
 But I am not willing to leave the impression that 
 all the fine enterprises were of Ludovika's initiation, 
 for such was not the case. My own wits, what 
 few I have, were not idle, as will now appear, I 
 hope. 
 
 There obtained among our neighbors of the old 
 native stock the custom of doctoring with simples, 
 or so they called them, meaning such homely 
 remedies as decoctions of herbs, or doses otherwise 
 prepared from the roots and leaves of familiar 
 plants. Some of the old folks made quite a 
 pretense at scientific exactness, and had a great 
 list of plants which held medicinal virtue, and 
 thought themselves competent to prescribe for 
 almost any kind of illness. Some of the plants 
 grew wild, but some had to be cultivated, and at 
 every farm where the old people still survived, you 
 were likely to find a corner of the garden given 
 over to " yarbs," as they had a way of speaking the 
 word, in their quaint dialect. The younger genera- 
 tion went in more for the patent preparations, which 
 may have been, after all, nothing more than the 
 old simples dressed up with flavors, but still there 
 was a vast amount, as it seemed to me, of dosing 
 in the old-fashioned way, people taking their 
 medicine regularly, as they took their food, whether 
 anything ailed them or not. Our neighbors of the 
 former generation, whom we looked up to with 
 great and growing respect, were forever claiming 
 wonderful things for their remedies, and urging 
 us to make trial of them, in such a kindly, solicitous 
 way that we could not do less than yield, now and 
 19 
 
290 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 then, though never gaining much faith, and it was 
 in that way we got to know about thoroughwort, 
 or boneset, the latter being the commonest name, 
 and as correct as any, I beHeve. Boneset, beyond 
 any reasonable doubt, has merit, although it is 
 none of your miraculous cure-alls. It is a simple 
 remedy for simple ills, such as all ills begin with 
 being, and that is the point I have always laid 
 emphasis on. It will not cure consumption in its 
 last stages, nor inflammatory rheumatism, but as 
 likely as not these desperate maladies had their first 
 beginnings in a cold, and boneset will knock a cold 
 into a cocked hat. I have been heard to say that if 
 everyone were to take a generous dose of boneset 
 every day, particularly in winter, the doctors and 
 the druggists would have to hunt up some new 
 business to engage in, for the reason that there 
 would be no more sickness for them to fatten on, 
 but of course I do not mean all of that. It was in 
 the hot pursuit of trade that I gave voice to this 
 sentiment, and I claim the merchant's right to be 
 dispensed from a rigid justification of it. I am 
 satisfied that nobody was seriously led astray, for 
 nobody expects a man in active business, any more 
 than a woman in polite society, to be strictly truthful 
 in all things. 
 
 My inspiration, if I may call it such, and I will 
 say that many things which are given the name seem 
 to me to have no better title thereto, — my inspira- 
 tion, I repeat, proceeded, as far as I am able to 
 trace it up toward its ultimate sources, from 
 two circumstances, in chief, namely, first, the 
 
A Lord of Lands. 291 
 
 abundance of boneset in our vicinity, for it grew 
 thickly about the verge of every swamp and swale, 
 having, with all its virtue, the pertinacity of the 
 veriest weed, and, secondly, its having been a valued 
 remedy in the very early times, the times of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers, concerning which the public have 
 conceived the notion, whether rightly or wrongly, 
 that no such thing as sickness existed then, and 
 nobody ever died except by starvation, or by the 
 tomahawk of the savage. It struck me, considering 
 these circumstances, that this prejudice, whereby 
 the manner of life of the ancient Puritan was 
 thought to have been most salubrious, might be made 
 to furnish a market for our great supply of boneset. 
 Prejudices were what people consulted with and 
 were swayed by when they spent their money, and 
 why was not this particular prejudice as respectable 
 as any other, that commercial enterprise should make 
 no use of it? 
 
 Having my plan matured in my mind, I set it 
 on foot by going out with my scythe and mowing 
 a great quantity of the boneset. I had learned 
 somewhere, doubtless from some one of our 
 pamphlets, that if green plants are cured in the 
 shade, they will retain their color even when 
 thoroughly dry and with this in view, I carried 
 the boneset home and spread it in an unused 
 loft, where it had free contact with the air both 
 above and below. It came through finely, and 
 was all you could ask in the way of looks. As 
 often as I had a spare moment I would run up 
 and pick over a bit of it, removing all the for- 
 
292 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 eign weeds and grasses, and bind it up in neat 
 and convenient bunches, not forgetting to trim the 
 butts off squarely with a sharp knife. As soon as 
 winter was well under way, and, as I surmised, the 
 people of the city were about having their first crop 
 of colds, I took a few of the bunches along with 
 me to market, and exposed them for sale, at ten 
 cents a bunch. In order to arrest attention, I had 
 me a sign, in great letters boldly written with a 
 carpenter's broad pencil, thus : 
 
 BONESET. 
 
 THE PHYSIC OF OUR FATHERS. 
 BUY A BUNCH AND BE AS WELL AS THEY WERE. 
 
 Of course I was laughed to scorn by the other 
 gardeners, who found endless delight in hectoring 
 me and calling me " Doc " and all that sort of 
 foolishness, the more as I had all my boneset to 
 bring back the first time or two, which was no 
 hardship beyond the humiliation, inasmuch as the 
 stuff was no heavier than so much hay. But about 
 the third time, I think, a woman came up and bought 
 a bunch. She had read about boneset in a story, 
 and w^ondered what it might be like. There was 
 a person in the story, she said, who was forever 
 drinking boneset tea, and it sounded pretty good. 
 Will you observe how little a thing a prejudice 
 commercially important will get itself built on? 
 This woman had a bad cold, and if she took the 
 boneset, which I told her how to prepare, it did herj 
 good, and very likely she imparted the secret to 
 
A Lord of Lands. 293 
 
 her neighbors. Anyway, although I never saw her 
 again, to my knowledge, the demand for boneset 
 picked up from that time on, until I had no trouble 
 in selling as many bunches as I could conveniently 
 bring, sometimes more and sometimes less. Some 
 days I have taken in as much as a dollar for boneset, 
 which was a dollar for clear profit, for I reckoned 
 the cost nothing, since I did the little work of the 
 business in time which I could make no other use 
 of. I had me a form of w^ords, carefully forged out 
 with a view to its sounding scientific enough to 
 be convincing and yet not so scientific as to arouse 
 a suspicion that I was not a farmer but a pro- 
 fessional hawker. If anybody doubted the identity 
 of the plant, as somebody was always doing, for 
 substitution, if not the fraud of the age, as they 
 say, is the fraud which the age has chosen to be 
 especially on the lookout for, I would call their 
 attention to the peculiar formation, with the stalk 
 running up through the middle of the leaf, and 
 beg them to refer to the picture of boneset or 
 thoroughwort which they would find in their 
 dictionary. Of course not one in a thousand of 
 the people who came down into the market to buy 
 their own sprouts had a dictionary, but the imputa- 
 tion flattered them all the more for that, and put 
 them in a pliant mood. I was reasonably careful 
 not to let the onrush of my eloquence carry me 
 beyond the limits of truth. If I drew it rather 
 strong as to the probable effect on the doctors and 
 druggists of a universal use of boneset, I meant it 
 to stand as the expression of an opinion, merely, 
 
294 ^ Lord of Lands. 
 
 and if anyone was led to believe otherwise, I am 
 sorry. Anyway, my intentions were good. Tucker 
 advised me to take up clover blossoms in a like 
 manner of exploitation, but, while I do not question 
 their merit as a remedy for derangements of the 
 eliminative system (I believe that is what they 
 are accounted good for), I was forced to let the 
 opportunity pass me, on mature deliberation. The 
 long and short of it was that there was no such 
 universal prejudice touching clover blossoms as 
 should justify me in taking them up. Your great 
 concerns, with no end of money to spend in advertis- 
 ing, can go to work and create any prejudice they 
 wish, for their own especial behoof, but we small 
 operators have to be content with such prejudices 
 as already exist. 
 
 Ludovika had her poultry, and it rendered a 
 good account of itself. In the earlier management 
 of the fowls we were guided mostly by our 
 pamphlets, and we got on fairly well, but we never 
 really learned the trade until we learned it of 
 experience. Such a bewildering multitude of 
 circumstances affect the welfare of chickens, 
 especially, that it is about impossible to get at the 
 true method until all the false ones have been tried. 
 Our failures cost us something, but never more 
 than their lesson was worth to us. The pamphlets 
 were strongly for blooded fowls, and flouted the 
 mongrel strains with such a disdain that we were 
 ashamed when our flock, in spite of all our precau- 
 tions, became more and more mixed, but we felt 
 somewhat relieved when it appeared that the farther 
 
A Lord of Lands, 
 
 295 
 
 our hens departed from their pure lineage, the better 
 returns they gave us in the way of eggs, and we 
 thought of the divinity that doth shape our ends 
 in spite of us, and having the pamphlets about 
 worn out with much handling we sent for no more 
 to take their place. We were in a quandary as to 
 the proper sort of a house to build for our first 
 poultry, but after all we had no great choice in 
 the matter, owing to the poverty of material, and 
 of the wherewithal to buy material. The best we 
 could provide was the merest makeshift of a hovel, 
 and we had a sense of guilt over it, and could not 
 escape the uncomfortable reflection that we had 
 no moral right to keep stock which we could treat 
 no better. But the biddies took to the old hovel 
 most cheerfully, and laid eggs all winter long, 
 and as early as the end of February began to be 
 taken with the fury of hatching, so that we had 
 fine broilers to sell in May. My own belief is that 
 hens have no fancy for ceremony and formality and 
 the appointments of luxury; but whether or no, 
 whatever their likes or dislikes, they are to be 
 humored. Unless a hen is easy in her mind she 
 will not do business, and that is the first gospel. 
 We have us a sightlier house in the stead of the 
 old hovel, now, but this we built rather for the 
 delight of our own eyes than out of any demand 
 on the part of the fowls. They were ever highly 
 content with the old place, because of its very 
 crudity, I suspect, and in making them a new place, 
 we kept the hint in mind. Too many people, when 
 they start out to make their poultry comfortable, 
 
296 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 consult their own feelings us to what constitutes 
 comfort, overlooking the fact that a hen's point of 
 view is not a man's. In our new house, we have 
 neat windows, with frames, precisely as in a human 
 dwelling, but every other window is filled with 
 cheese-cloth in place of glass, to let in plenty of 
 fresh air, and let out the vapors, and, last but not 
 least, to temper the luxurious warmth which dis- 
 heartens any creature of the feathered kind. Tucker 
 has a hen-house of which he boasts that water 
 never freezes in it, day or night, no matter how 
 cold the weather, but he gets no eggs in winter, 
 and when his hens begin laying in the spring, they 
 eat their eggs. Tucker avers, sardonically, that 
 they keep on eating all they lay until the price of 
 eggs falls below ten cents a dozen, after which 
 they get to feel above the diet, and cast about for 
 something more expensive. He does not pretend 
 to explain how it is that we get eggs just when 
 eggs are fetching most, or how it is that our hens 
 never eat their eggs, though they have every chance 
 in the world, but do you imagine Tucker would ever 
 take the lesson to heart and come over to our way 
 of doing? If you do, you don't know Tucker. 
 
 I think I can put you the case in a nutshell. The 
 thing is to keep hens dry. They are well provided 
 by nature against cold, but not against dampness. 
 If they are dry, they will endure almost any degree 
 of cold, especially if they are permitted to work 
 for their food, as easily they can be by mingling 
 their corn with a great mass of litter. 
 
 We took the ginseng fever, in a mild form, or, 
 
A Lord of Lands. 297 
 
 rather, Richy and I took it, our imaginations being 
 fired by stories of the enormous profits to be 
 gathered. But Ludovika was not to be won over. 
 
 " What is the stuff used for? " says she. 
 
 " The Chinese," says I, " esteem it a charm. 
 They think if they carry a bit of the root with them, 
 it will ward off all evil." 
 
 "Stuff!" says she. 
 
 " Very true," says I, " but what do we care, as 
 long as they pay the price ? " 
 
 " It's a gross and wicked superstition," says she, 
 " and we'd best have nothing to do with it." 
 
 I am not quite convinced, however. Just where do 
 superstitions cease to be innocent, and begin to be 
 gross and wicked? 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I CANNOT shake off the feeling that in order to 
 round out my narrative, I should have just one 
 more chapter of moonshine. For it seems to me 
 certain that you will have been asking, with rising 
 curiosity, how I, an unlettered laboring man to start 
 with, ever acquired sufficient learning and polish 
 to write a book. 
 
 The account of how I took on a new growth of 
 mind, though long past the growing age, has, more- 
 over, I persuade myself, a general significance, 
 inasmuch as it is the experience of no more than 
 an average man, upon being translated out of a 
 cramped and artificial environment into a freer air; 
 and this circumstance alone, I should suppose, will 
 justify me in what is strictly a digression. 
 
 Anyway, I am burning to tell it, and will have 
 done with apologies. 
 
 To begin at the beginning, then, there were always 
 politicians coming to see us. Sixteen votes, in 
 a sparsely settled country, were not to be despised. 
 After awhile a law was made which gave women- 
 kmd the right to vote in school affairs, and with 
 that we were more sought after than ever. There 
 were times, indeed, when nothing was too good 
 for us. Our democratical form of government is 
 
A Lord of Lands. 299 
 
 to the advantage of the plain people in one respect, 
 if no more; for it affords them, periodically, and 
 not seldomer than every two years, the occasion of 
 their having cigars to smoke without cost to them- 
 selves, unless it should be a slight matter of self- 
 respect, and of wearing the air of weight and 
 consequence, which is truly a gratification for such 
 of us as are not philosophers. These politicians 
 sang always the same siren song, varied only to 
 suit the exigencies of the hour. They promised 
 that our taxes should be less, the only condition 
 being that we on our part should vote as they bade 
 us, but although we fulfilled the condition always, 
 since we always voted for one or another of them, 
 and they all held out the same promise, I have it 
 to say, after many years of waiting, that the taxes 
 have steadily gone up, and not always slowly, never 
 once down, until now the man who will not lie to 
 the assessor has to yield up one dollar out of every 
 twenty-five he has, each year, to pay for the inestim- 
 able privilege of being governed in a free and 
 enlightened manner. Some Frenchman, whose 
 name escapes me, as about all foreign names do, says 
 that the freer a people are, the bigger their taxes, 
 from which I draw the comforting inference that 
 we in our day are most prodigiously free. 
 
 But I am not the man to fret over what I can't 
 help, unless it is the weather, or to let discontent 
 sour me, happen what will, and especially after 
 all the reason I have for being grateful, I will not 
 complain of a few dollars more or less, for taxes, 
 even though I seem to get little or nothing in return. 
 
300 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 What I am coming at is the politicians, and of all 
 politicians Neighbor Tucker especially. Politics 
 was Tucker's passion. 
 
 Every man has his passion. Elizabeth suggests 
 that I mean to say obsession, which may be, 
 although, after looking the term up, I incline to 
 the belief that it carries with it rather more of the 
 idea of unsoundness of mind than I wish to imply. 
 But be that as it may, every man has his own 
 peculiar source of fun, his one particular thing 
 which he can go in for with pleasure, and this is 
 what I mean by his passion. With some the getting 
 of money is their passion. Some, again, have 
 sport for their passion, and will sit like statues for 
 hours, waiting for a fish to bite, or crawl on their 
 bellies through the mire for half a mile to get shot 
 at a wild duck. There are men whose passion is 
 books, and men whose passion is religion, who find 
 fun, though it be of solemn sort, in worship and 
 prayer. But Tucker's passion, in those days, was, 
 as I say, politics. He is a different man, now, for 
 the passions of eighty, if any survive so long, are 
 not the passions of fifty, and Tucker will be eighty 
 if he lives till October, and the intention is to have 
 a celebration of the event, though this is for the 
 present a secret. 
 
 Baldwin was a horse of another color. His pas- 
 sion, as nearly as I could make it out, was to beat 
 Tucker. He went in for politics, ardently, but 
 apparently with no other interest than that. Tucker, 
 in the pursuit of his passion, aspired to be boss in 
 the school district, in the township, and even in 
 
A Lord of Lands. 301 
 
 the county, while Baldwin, in the pursuit of his, 
 got in Tucker's way at every turn of the road. 
 They were complete enemies. Tucker always took 
 himself too seriously, and would never speak to 
 Baldwin unless he must. Baldwin had more of 
 the sense of humor and always treated Tucker with 
 studied courtesy. 
 
 Their interest in us, whereby they had hastened 
 to help us when we needed help, fed us when we 
 were hungry, clothed us when we were naked, and 
 w^hen we were strangers took us in, in more senses 
 than one, possibly, was their interest in our sixteen 
 votes, and very little else. There was an election 
 coming on, which should decide the control of the 
 school district for another two years, and sixteen 
 votes, provided they held together, would turn the 
 scale either way. Although the contest could not 
 come to an issue until fall, and it was now early 
 spring, Tucker and Baldwin had already locked 
 horns, and neither of them was likely to leave a 
 stone unturned. 
 
 The situation was not to our liking, for all that 
 it inured to our benefit. It was only too clear that 
 the favors which these two men were showering 
 upon us were loading us with a debt of obligation 
 which we could never repay, any more than one 
 person could ride two horses, for if we returned the 
 favor of either we should be ungrateful to the 
 other. Our first thought was to decline utterly to 
 have anything to do with the quarrel, for certainly 
 it was a good mess to keep out of. We imagined 
 we had a sufficient excuse in our ignorance of local 
 
302 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 affairs, but it did not prove so. Indeed, no excuse 
 would dispense us. About the worst thing we could 
 do was to hold aloof, since by that course we should 
 displease pretty much everybody, whereas, by 
 participating, we should displease only a faction. 
 To stay away from the school meeting, as if we 
 did not care, would be to give ourselves the character 
 of aliens, and this we should avoid at any cost. 
 Moreover, we did care. With all our young 
 children to be considered, the school was a matter 
 of the first concern with us. 
 
 We hatched up schemes and schemes for wrig- 
 gling out of the dilemma. One of these, rather 
 seriously entertained, proposed that we divide our 
 strength, half voting for Tucker and half for 
 Baldwin, but the more we looked at it, the less we 
 were able to persuade ourselves that it would avail, 
 unless we could make our friends believe we split 
 up thus on sincere conviction, and not simply to 
 dodge the responsibility, and at last we gave it 
 up as impracticable, in wholesome fear of the 
 tangled web which, according to the poet, we weave 
 when first we practice to deceive. We were not 
 altogether incapable of deception, as you will see 
 presently, but it was the part of wisdom to have 
 recourse to guile of a less complicated nature. After 
 a great deal of ineffectual planning, the suggestion 
 got itself made by some bold spirit that inasmuch 
 as we held the balance of power, we should take 
 the matter into our own hands and decide it all 
 our own way, regardless of Tucker and Baldwin 
 and their factions. It was an impudent thing to 
 
A Lord of Lands, 
 
 303 
 
 do, and moreover none too consistent, after what 
 we had pleaded of our ignorance of local affairs; 
 but consistency is only a jewel, after all, and jewels 
 can be spared; and as for the impudence of it, 
 nobody would throw that up at us, provided only we 
 succeeded. Often the boldest course is by that 
 very token the safest. And so it happened now. 
 
 During all the months which elapsed before the 
 election, we listened respectfully to Tucker and to 
 Baldwin, as if we were touched by their eloquence, 
 but we made them no promises. We answered them 
 that we took their valuable advice to heart, but 
 would they consider that we were new to the busi- 
 ness, and allow us time to make up our minds? In 
 order that we might not appear too clannish and 
 exclusive in what we were about to do, and, 
 furthermore, in order that we might not fail of 
 a good working majority by any mischance, when 
 the pinch came, we took some few of the neighbors 
 into our confidence, picking out such as appeared 
 least committed to the feud. We found them very 
 willing. They were heartily tired of the everlast- 
 ing wrangle which should never be ended no matter 
 who won, and they were disgusted with the 
 awkwardness of it for them, by which they could 
 not choose to do nothing, lest they give offense, nor 
 yet choose between the only two things there were 
 to do, lest they give offense likewise. They were 
 glad and thankful when we opened a third course 
 to them. 
 
 The election, which was to elect the three trustees 
 of the district, was held in September, on the even- 
 
3^4 
 
 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 ing of the third Tuesday, if I rightly recall the 
 language of the law which then governed. It is 
 pretty dark, at half after 7, in late September, even 
 when the weather is clear, which it was far enough 
 from being, that night, for there was a thick pall 
 of mist, lying motionless like a blanket cast over 
 the earth, making it not only very black, but very 
 hot and close. We crowded into the rude little old 
 schoolhouse where the carved and battered forms 
 afforded seats for no more than half of us, and were 
 not much used, anyway, the excitement having the 
 effect of keeping everybody not only on his feet, 
 but on his very tiptoes. Only such of the crowd as 
 were in our secret were sustained by any sort of 
 assurance as to the outcome, and even for them 
 there was uncertainty, since no battle is won, in 
 politics, where treachery is constantly lurking about 
 to blast the counsels of the brave in the hour of 
 their might, until the last gun has been fired. As 
 for the others, who knew of no possible issue except 
 the election either of Tucker or of Baldwin, they 
 w^ere in a ferment of suspense. They fairly trem- 
 bled, they were that wound up, for although the 
 matter was not momentous, judged coolly, by the 
 standards of common sense, these men's sympathies 
 had been worked on, and their pride of opinion ap- 
 pealed to, and many another foolish prejudice 
 brought into action, until they were convinced that 
 great things hung on the event. Even in that sim- 
 ple, almost primitive assemblage, there was an 
 intricacy of subtle relations, each giving rise to its 
 shade of sentiment, to affect, more or less, the mood 
 
A Lord of Lands. 305 
 
 of the moment, and to make the occasion important 
 in the general estimation. A curious incident, or 
 accident, will serve to illustrate the frame of mind 
 we found ourselves in, if I can tell it rightly. 
 
 We had no light except a lantern which Tucker 
 fetched. Tucker was clerk of the old board of 
 trustees, and, in virtue of his office, moderator of 
 the present meeting, and it lay upon him to attend 
 to whatever arrangements had to be made. The 
 necessity for artificial light of some kind he met 
 by bringing along his barn lantern. Tucker's 
 lantern was famous far and wide, and deserved its 
 fame by its singularity. The Tuckers had a great 
 fear of kerosene, having known in the intimate 
 way of a frightful explosion of the stuff in the 
 early days of its use, before the processes of 
 refinement were well understood ; and such was their 
 feeling against it that they would not use it, and 
 relied upon tallow dips for their light. Tucker's 
 lantern was a tin box with glass sides, and a dim 
 candle set up within, and it achieved hardly more, 
 to-night, than to indicate the location of the chair, 
 for the guidance of those who should make remarks. 
 
 Some half-grown boys, whose identity was never 
 fully disclosed, having no doubt scented the chance 
 of disorder, had come and pushed themselves in, 
 along with the men, nobody paying much attention 
 to them, at first. Of course they had no appreciation 
 of the merits, or any wish to uphold them, and 
 very presently they fell into a most outrageous 
 conduct, by preconcerted plan, I daresay. They 
 began, rather cautiously, with coughing and groan- 
 20 
 
306 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 ing, but finding themselves pretty much masters 
 of the situation, with nothing to fear, under cover 
 of the night, they took to making audible comments 
 and otherwise interrupting the gravity of the 
 proceedings, and at length, emboldened by impunity, 
 they threw things, and things not the most incon- 
 siderable, either. I myself was struck with some 
 hurtling object, the exact nature of which I did not 
 make out, but which I surmised, from the manner of 
 its bursting against my head, to be a tomato, which 
 it probably was, for the vines were hanging full of 
 tomatoes at the time. But I had no time to consider 
 my own case, for almost at the same instant some- 
 thing hit the lantern and sent it to the floor with 
 a loud crash of glass, and we were in complete 
 darkness, and such darkness, too, that it seemed to 
 have a substantiality, . much as if we had been 
 suddenly buried under a rush of black earth. 
 
 Now, as I look at it, that little shred of light, 
 though it scarcely rived the darkness, gave us our 
 sense of locality, and the instant it went out, we 
 were wholly lost. The excitement long gathering, 
 the irritation caused by the conduct of the boys, the 
 sweltering heat, all these and perhaps more, had 
 combined to put us in a very ticklish mood, and in a 
 way to fall under the grotesque and absurd fear 
 which at once laid hold of us. Instantly there was 
 the wildest confusion. We shouted and cursed 
 and fought and struggled, as if we were under a 
 fatal danger, not to be escaped unless we got out 
 of the schoolhouse forthwith. Even the boys, with 
 all their levity, were scared by the unexpected turn 
 
A Lord of Lands. 307 
 
 of affairs, and their shrill voices were to be heard 
 above the uproar, clamoring for mercy. What any 
 man in his sober senses chancing by, should have 
 thought of us, I cannot imagine. We were like a 
 swarm of enraged bees boiling and seething out of 
 the narrow door of their hive, only that we neglected 
 the door, for the most part. It seemed to me, at 
 least, that I knew not where the door was; and 
 along with a good many others, I got out through a 
 window. Could anything be more ridiculous? 
 Once out in the open air, our panic evaporated as 
 speedily as it had come upon us, leaving us to feel 
 pretty foolish. The boys scampered off into the 
 bosom of the night, thoroughly satiated with 
 mischief for once, and that was sufficiently ludicrous, 
 and helped to break the spell. There was somebody, 
 as there always is, providentially, in every crowd, 
 to crack a joke at the psychological moment, and 
 set us all laughing, and then several who were best 
 acquainted with the premises went back in and 
 fumbled about till they found the lantern, which 
 they quickly set to rights and lighted, and after 
 that we all went in, and got down to business and 
 carried it through without further hindrance. 
 
 Excepting us of the conspiracy, none had a 
 thought of there being more than the two tickets in 
 the field, one carrying the names of Tucker and two 
 of his henchmen, and the other carrying the names 
 of Baldwin and two of his henchmen. We had our 
 ballots all written out in advance, and there was no 
 delay in voting. Tucker, in obedience to the law 
 of custom, called Baldwin up to act with himself 
 
308 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 as tellers, and they two counted, while the rest of 
 us stood about and looked on, breathlessly. They 
 had to draw up close under the dim light of the 
 lantern, and as they worked we could see with 
 tolerable distinctness their strong, weather-beaten 
 faces. It was soon evident that they had come 
 upon something which surprised them, for they 
 dropped their distant manner toward each other, 
 and whispered together in an agitated way. Three 
 times they counted the ballots over, while the sweat 
 rolled down from their brows, for the night was 
 warm, as I say, and no doubt there was inward heat 
 developing all the time. Finally they gave over, 
 and then Tucker stood up, mopping his face with a 
 great red handkerchief, and proclaimed the result. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, w4th a quaver in his voice, 
 which touched me some, for I could understand how 
 it hurt him to be beaten, '' it appears from a count of 
 the ballots that a majority have voted for Matthew 
 Fitzgerald, Adoniram Baldwin and Israel Tucker, 
 and if there is no objection, these will be declared 
 and are hereby declared trustees of the district for 
 the ensuing year." 
 
 There was a gasping for breath all round the 
 room, and then a tittering, and then somebody, in 
 a far corner, guffawed, with a loud guffaw, and 
 that seemed to settle it. There was laughter on 
 every hand, and clapping, and cheers. In the midst 
 of the applause, the moderator put the motion to 
 adjourn, which nobody had thought to offer, and 
 it was carried with a great whoop, and then we 
 went home, and there was a better feeling, through- 
 
A Lord of Lands. 309 
 
 out all the district, than there had been before for 
 many a long day. In so far as it concerned public 
 affairs, the feud of Tucker and Baldwin was quite 
 extinguished. They could never get anybody 
 interested in their quarrel, after that, and at length, 
 I am glad to relate, they had the good sense to 
 give up having one at all, and became tolerable 
 friends. 
 
 So it happened that I, though I have no passion 
 for politics, or even a fair liking, found myself in 
 office, little dreaming at the time what it should 
 mean to me, to what a degree I was to be enlarged 
 by it. I have been a trustee of the district from 
 that day to this, and it has been for me one long, 
 delightful schooling. Whatever of education I 
 have, be it much or little, and by education I mean 
 not the mere matter of knowledge, which is 
 incidental, but rather the capacity to think, freely 
 and validly to use what power of mind God has 
 given me, to some purpose, this I have acquired in 
 these years. All the while I have been going to 
 school, in our httle schoolhouse beyond the hill 
 there, not to sit in the benches, to be sure, or to 
 be enrolled as a scholar, but none the less to learn 
 the good lessons, to read the good books, and to 
 hear the teacher's good advice. I have seen my 
 mind widening and widening, the thinking soul 
 rising grandly up and throwing off its fetters; and 
 this, I think, is an experience not vouchsafed to 
 many. Whereas the minds of most men are opened 
 for them in their youth (or not at all) and they 
 come into the use of their powers before they are 
 
3IO A Lord of Lands. 
 
 rightly aware of the way of it, this thing was done 
 for me after I became a man, and more than a young 
 man, and so I saw how it came about. And that 
 is my excuse, if I seem to speak more confidently of 
 education and its processes than befits a person not 
 a doctor of laws. 
 
 It is by contact that we are educated. A child is 
 to be treated much after the manner of a puppy, 
 although the purpose is as different as reason 
 is different from instinct. You take your puppy in- 
 to the field and work him along with the old dog, 
 and pretty soon he knows his trade, what to do and 
 what not to do, whether his trade be hunting or 
 herding. With the child, as I say, the thing to 
 be taught is the free and efficient use of the think- 
 ing soul, and the trick of education is nothing more 
 or less than to bring him, as his mind is ready for 
 it, in contact with men who know how to think, 
 that is, in contact with efficient minds in the act of 
 thinking. And here is where books come in. A 
 favored few may come directly in contact with 
 strong thinking men, and know them personally, 
 and derive thus the best education possible. But 
 for the most of us, the only way to reach such men 
 and come in contact with them, is through their 
 books. A good book, a book worthy of the name, 
 exhibits always some able mind in the act of think- 
 ing, and so it becomes an implement of common or 
 popular education. The part of the teacher is 
 simply the part of the trainer with his puppy, to see 
 that the contact is what it should be, to help it, if 
 necessary, with judicious words of appreciation. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 311 
 
 Of course a good teacher does not grow on every 
 bush. We have been vexed and vexed with the 
 teachers who come out to us, flourishing their 
 certificates of competency under our noses with 
 the air of deeming us poor rustic clods who should 
 at once cringe down at their feet, and turning out 
 upon trial to be scarcely more than a mixture of 
 ignorance and vanity. I have always in mind those 
 words of President Garfield, who said his notion 
 of getting a liberal education was sitting on one 
 end of a log out in the wild woods, with Mark 
 Hopkins at the other end. Nothing mattered much, 
 in his estimation, you see, but the man at the other 
 end. We do not expect to get a luminous intellect 
 like Mark Hopkins, for $40 a month, but we fail to 
 see why a reasonable humility should be beyond 
 our means. 
 
 Especially is a discriminating teacher needed in 
 order to guard against the great danger which 
 lurks in the cheapness of reading matter, the con- 
 stant temptation to read too much. Unless we are 
 guided into the better habit, we are apt to fall under 
 the sway of an insatiable curiosity, which impels us 
 to explore all literature, until, even though we take 
 up only the most meritorious books, we are worn 
 out by the effort. When the young mind has been 
 once awakened and set to work, by the stimulating 
 contact with other minds, when it has been given 
 to know something of its powers and to take delight 
 in using them, what it then needs most is plenty of 
 chance to think. To press more reading upon it, 
 after that, is like forcing more food upon a stomach 
 
312 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 already replete. Reading for pastime is about as 
 foolish as eating for pastime, though both are com- 
 mon practices. Too much reading, I suspect, is 
 what has induced the mental daintiness, call it 
 almost nausea, which we see all about us, whereby 
 people loathe the reading that puts some mental 
 effort upon them, and will have only the spiced 
 gruel which tickles the taste, and fills, perhaps, but 
 does not nourish. 
 
 Sure it has been great fun for me. I don't 
 wonder, any more, at those who take study for 
 their passion. If I could not be a farmer, which 
 is the best business a man can be at, I should wish 
 to be a scholar, and do nothing but study, and 
 think. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 And now, what more have I to tell? 
 
 We are not rich, but we esteem ourselves well 
 off. We are not pattern farmers, but we get a 
 great deal of joy out of living, and no man is the 
 sadder for our joy. We have our ups and our 
 downs, but if we had nothing but ups, we should 
 soon lose the sense of them, and then they would 
 be no comfort to us. God pity the man who is 
 never disappointed. Disappointment is a bitter 
 thing to take, and how bitter no man knows better 
 than I, but like my boneset, which is bitter, too, 
 it is a wholesome regulative. And so I have this 
 much more to say to you, my friend, that the 
 country is the place for a poor man. Old earth is 
 the mother of us all, and we cannot do better, when 
 we are hard beset, than fly to her sympathetic bosom. 
 
 We were nine years paying off our debt, for we 
 took the matter coolly, and built up the property 
 the while. When I paid over the last dollar to 
 Beverly, the old fellow shook my hand cordially, 
 and said some very pleasant things which I need 
 not repeat, and expressed the hope, in all sincerity, 
 I am sure, that I might still find it in my way to 
 drop in and see him now and then. His compli- 
 ments, and the relief of being rid of the burden 
 
314 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 (for debt, in spite of the economic advantages which 
 circumstances sometimes give it, is after all a bur- 
 den) lifted me up for -the moment, and put me in 
 high spirits. But as we jogged along home, Viola 
 and I, there stole over me a feeling of depression. 
 Was it a sort of loneliness, a sense of having noth- 
 ing left to work for, now that the debt was no 
 more? You hear of men seeming to themselves 
 lost, upon the completion of a long and arduous 
 labor, and something of that there may have been 
 with me, but it was not all. 
 
 When I was come home, our own home, now at 
 last, and the chores were done, and supper eaten, 
 and the children out about their various concerns, 
 all but the baby in Ludovika's lap, for we were not 
 yet beyond having a baby in the house all the time» 
 I spoke of the great business of the day, and re- 
 peated what Beverly had said, with every smallest 
 detail, knowing a woman's fondness for particulars. 
 And Ludovika sighed. 
 
 " Are you not glad the debt is paid? " said I. 
 
 " I was not thinking of the debt," said she. 
 
 I knew only too well what she was thinking of. 
 It was what I had been thinking of, all the way 
 home, and growing sadder and sadder, in the face 
 of our good fortune. I had not the heart to utter a 
 word. 
 
 ** In a week from to-day," said Ludovika, after 
 a little, and her voice was laden with woe, '' our son 
 will be twenty-one." 
 
 " Yes," said I, trying hard to be simply proud 
 over it. " Richy is a fine man, now." 
 
A Lord of Lands. 3 1 5 
 
 " He will go away from us," said she. 
 
 " He should be making a place for himself," said 
 I. *' Richy is too good a man to play second fiddle, 
 even to his father, and I am not old enough to be 
 laid on the shelf." 
 
 It was getting dark, and I could not see her face, 
 even though she were not bending low over the 
 child. But I knew she was crying. 
 
 "What is the use of it all!" she faltered out, 
 brokenly. " Why should we trouble to pay the debt, 
 if our children are to go away and leave us bare in 
 our old age? After all the pain and trouble of 
 bringing children into the world, that the end of it 
 should be our desolation! " 
 
 You know how unreasonable a mother is about 
 her son. If she can have her way, she will never let 
 him leave her side. Forgetful alike of human 
 nature, and Scripture, and reason, she dreams of his 
 cleaving forever unto her and will have nothing less. 
 I felt called upon to preach Ludovika a sermon of 
 resignation, essaying to look down at her from a 
 philosophical eminence. I asked her to consider the 
 blue-jay, and its admirable manner of dealing with 
 its young, how that its seeming severity was the 
 very means of making fine sturdy birds of the 
 fledgelings. If the young were kept forever under 
 the parent wing, what should they amount to? I 
 was about to say that it was likewise with human 
 beings, but just here my sermon seemed to break 
 down. I perceived that I was not convincing Ludo- 
 vika, and when I came to think of it, I was not con- 
 vincing myself. I cast about for some new line of 
 
31 6 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 argument, but found none at hand, and gave over 
 at last, with a huskiness in my throat. 
 
 When Ludovika, on her part, spoke again, her 
 voice was rather steadier than before, but still 
 marked by the note of sorrow. 
 
 " My children are not blue- jays, I hope," she 
 said, and her words went to my heart. There is no 
 making head against a woman's feelings, when once 
 they have the mastery of her, and especially it is 
 true that when a woman is swayed by her feelings, 
 she will look upon her husband much in the light of 
 an inferior species, and be deaf to his advice, how- 
 ever wholesome. 
 
 But the Lord had not forgotten us, as we found 
 out, all in good time. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Death shunned our colony long, perhaps because 
 there were among us but few if any of the shining 
 marks whom the dark angel is said especially to 
 love; but more likely, I imagine, because we were 
 middling young and rugged to begin with, and 
 lived, not so much by any virtue of ours, as out of 
 the necessity laid upon us by the blessed moderate- 
 ness of our means, a simple and a healthful life. 
 And when at last death came, it was through an acci- 
 dent, if there be such a thing as an accident in God's 
 providence. 
 
 William Wightman, our best carpenter, a most 
 efficient artisan, with a native taste for the effects 
 of architecture, as every house in the settlement 
 testifies, for they all show his handiwork, and a 
 most worthy man in all his relations, whether as 
 husband, father or neighbor, while working at his 
 bench one winter day met with some slight mishap 
 which left on the finger of his hand one of those 
 bruises which common people call blood-blisters. 
 He took no serious thought of it, but seeing it stand 
 out in a swollen manner, he thought to release the 
 effete blood which might otherwise fester, and 
 straightway opened the skin, by means of his awl, 
 which lay conveniently by him. He had no sus- 
 
31 8 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 picion of danger, having done the same thing many 
 times before, but it chanced that the tool was full of 
 frost, and his own blood at the moment, for what 
 reason I know not, since he was a very sound per- 
 son, in a condition to receive infection readily, and 
 betwixt them there set in an inflammation which 
 developed into malignant gangrene. To make the 
 case worse, Wightman was slow to take alarm, 
 having a healthy man's scorn of small ills, and an 
 active man's aversion to lying by for treatment, and 
 so the malady got a great start. It was not till the 
 debility and utter wretchedness of a corrupted cir- 
 culation came upon him that he gave up and took to 
 his bed, and then it was too late to mend, in spite 
 of the proverb. He never rose again, although, by 
 dint of his strong vitality and the devices of surgery 
 and good care, he lingered for months. 
 
 Wightman had a pretty large family, as families 
 go, though one of the smallest of the colony, and 
 with this further peculiarity that his boys were all 
 girls. He had five daughters and never a son. 
 They were bright, pleasant girls, sound in limb and 
 wind, and that ought to be enough, but it is not, in 
 the eyes of the world, as everyone knows. Unless 
 a girl has some claim to beauty, she is going to be 
 neglected and passed by for others perhaps not half 
 as worthy. The Wightman girls were none of 
 them favored in the matter of looks, except as 
 babies, when they had a sauciness about them which 
 was very taking, and caused you to regret seeing 
 them grow up, and of the lot Caroline, the eldest, 
 was most especially plain, a broad, stocky, almost 
 
A Lord of Lands. 319 
 
 formless person, with a freckled face and a snub 
 nose, and, what the w^omen, who should know 
 whereof they speak, declare worst of all, red hair, 
 and none of your auburn hair, or golden hair, either, 
 but downright red, with no ifs nor ands about it. 
 Will you tell me what is the ground for the feeling 
 against red hair? My own is pretty much turned to 
 white, so that I have not the interest in the question 
 I once had, and still I should like very much to 
 know. 
 
 But Caroline, I am convinced, never lost any sleep 
 worrying over her plainness, or its effect upon her 
 prospects, although it w^as no doubt a disappoint- 
 ment to her, as it should be to every good girl, to 
 find herself not much considered by the young men. 
 A defect of beauty is a good thing for a woman in 
 at least one way, since it throws her back upon her 
 good sense, and develops strong and admirable traits 
 which a pretty face would leave her with no oc- 
 casion to discover. Whatever thought of marrying 
 Caroline may have entertained in her young girl- 
 hood, and I suppose the girl never w^as who enter- 
 tained no such thought, she put it away when she 
 became a woman, and made herself everybody's 
 sweetheart, in a sense. Her gentle unselfish ways 
 won her a place in the affections of all who knew her, 
 until we were ready, any of us, to make oath that 
 she was the best and dearest girl in the world. 
 The very fact of her being so obviously and con- 
 fessedly out of the matrimonial race, as it were, 
 made her the natural confidant, not only of the 
 other girls, but of the boys, too, and girls and boys 
 
320 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 alike went to her with their little troubles of the 
 heart, and she knew more of the love affairs of the 
 neighborhood than anybody else could dimly guess. 
 
 When it came time for her to think of making 
 her own way, she chose to be a teacher. She would 
 have made an ideal teacher, I know, what with her 
 quick insight, and ready sympathy, and boundless 
 patience. We took a pride in her fine qualities, and 
 an interest in her progress, and looked for her to 
 achieve great things. But her destiny was ordered 
 otherwise. She had gone away to school to fit her- 
 self, when her father was taken sick, for nothing 
 would satisfy her but the best equipment to be had. 
 Of course she had to come home. I say of course, 
 because the mother was a weak character, a suf^- 
 cient helpmate for a strong man, but without force 
 to take the lead in an emergency, and the other 
 girls were like her, or else too young to be con- 
 sidered. Caroline had to come, and the worst of it 
 was, there was no telling when she might go back, 
 if ever. None of us doubted much that Wightman 
 was never to get well, and when he was gone, who 
 was to be head of the family, if not Caroline? We 
 looked ahead and saw the girl's life marked out 
 for her by inexorable fate, and it was the life of 
 drudging sacrifice. Why were such crosses reserved 
 for such a person? We sorrowed for her, you 
 may believe, but we never saw the first sign that she 
 sorrowed for herself. She shouldered her great 
 burden cheerfully, as if she were altogether con- 
 tent. And truly, I believe she was. 
 
 There was a desperate tangle awaiting her. Mrs. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 321 
 
 Wightman had worried herself into a state border- 
 ing on collapse, and had actually to be watched for 
 fear of her doing something very dreadful. The 
 little girls, one of them a babe in arms, were another 
 care, since their mother was not to be trusted with 
 them. Then there was the farm work, going at 
 sixes and sevens, for lack of a man's hand. These 
 things the neighbors could, and gladly did, take 
 upon themselves, and attended to faithfully until 
 the end, but they were only a small part as compared 
 with that which of necessity devolved upon Caroline. 
 The care of the sick man was her task, and it 
 was such a task as girl of eighteen never had before. 
 No doubt it is a brave thing to plunge into the 
 jaws of belching cannon, in search of the bubble 
 reputation or what not, but then the suspense and 
 trial are soon over and done with, one way or the 
 other. But what of the bravery of this thing of 
 attending for months upon one sick with the 
 uncleanest of sickness, never drawing back, never 
 showing the faintest indication of repulsion, never 
 neglecting one touch for the loathsomeness of it? 
 As long as Wightman kept his senses, he endured 
 grittily, for he was a gritty man, who took pride in 
 keeping his pains to himself. But soon the poison 
 mounted to his brain, and robbed him of his under- 
 standing, and after that he was like a sick child, to 
 the last degree fretful and whimsical and exacting. 
 He would have nobody near him but Caroline, and 
 her he would not endure out of his sight. His 
 poor body fell into a most awful state of ulceration, 
 until it took a high fortitude for anybody to approach 
 
322 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 him, and the labor of keeping his linen wholesome 
 was appalling. Everything he touched had to be 
 changed as often as once each day, and the wash- 
 ing alone, even had it been of an ordinary character, 
 was work enough for a strong woman. Caroline 
 did every rag of it, with her own hands, and would 
 hear to nobody outside the family being troubled 
 with it, and to tell the truth, I doubt if she was very 
 hard pressed to yield that point, for it would take 
 a sublimer sentiment than neighborly kindness to 
 hold a woman of ordinary sensibilities to so nauseous 
 an employment. It is altogether a most unpleasant 
 subject to dwell on, and I would fain forget it, 
 only that it is the proof of the heroic fiber of our 
 girl, and as such it should be set down. Nothing but 
 a wondrous love, such as few are capable of, and a 
 wondrous sense of duty, such as few have any 
 understanding of, could have sustained her, to live 
 night and day in that fetid atmosphere, to do that 
 awful work. We men used to take turns going over 
 to help her about the lifting when Wightman's 
 clothing had to be changed, and for my part I 
 never entered the place without being stricken sick 
 at my stomach, and I am not uncommonly 
 squeamish, either. 
 
 When he died at last, everybody said in his heart, 
 in all kindness, for we remembered Wightman 
 kindly, and meant no disrespect, that it was a 
 blessed deliverance. Caroline alone mourned and 
 was bowed with sorrow. It seemed almost as if 
 she hoped to see her father recover, to see him 
 raised as from the dead by her faith and love, she 
 
A Lord of Lands. 323 
 
 took it that hard. I surmise there was a great 
 sympathy between her and her father, which none 
 of us rightly understood. They were a good deal 
 alike, and the only two of their kind in the family. 
 For all the burden that his death had lifted from her, 
 we could see that she was wishing she had her 
 father back, the day we buried him. 
 
 But her troubles, great though they had been, 
 were only beginning. What were the Wightmans 
 to do, henceforth? That was the question we had 
 been asking one another, from the first anticipation 
 of this sad hour, and now it had got to be answered. 
 Only one answer had we been able to find, and 
 none of us liked to think of it. But after the funeral, 
 when we had come home and laid off our good 
 clothes, Ludovika addressed me in a fashion not 
 usual with her, and told me my duty. 
 
 " Go," said she, " and counsel with them. You 
 can say what nobody else can, for they look up to 
 you. Somebody has got to tell them." 
 
 That was only too true. Somebody had got to 
 tell them. And what they were to be told was no less 
 than this, that it was out of the question for them, 
 a family of women, to try to keep their farm. 
 They must give it up, and go and make them a home 
 where there was employment fit for women, and that 
 meant, of course, in the city. It struck us all as 
 a very hard necessity indeed. What was the woman 
 likely to make of the discovery of her situation, in 
 her weak and flighty condition? And what if 
 Caroline should be for staying and making a man 
 of herself, and going on with the farm, to please her 
 
324 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 mother, how was she to be argued out of it ? How 
 could she be convinced of the futiHty of it? Yet 
 there was no other way. It was a sad errand, to be 
 carrying new grief into the house of mourning, but 
 Ludovika was right about it. It was my place to 
 go, and I went. 
 
 I found the widow resting very easy under her 
 bereavement, which I had no reason to wonder at, 
 considering all the circumstances, but which shocked 
 me, none the less. It seemed to me that although 
 Wightman was better dead, and would be himself 
 the first to say so if he could speak, and moreover 
 although there is in general more weeping for the 
 dead than is sensible or becoming, because after all 
 it springs chiefly out of a selfish sense of depriva- 
 tion, notwithstanding, I say, it seemed to me that the 
 woman should be sad, if only with the memory of 
 better days, and the thought of what might have 
 been. But I was glad, on reflection, from the point 
 of view of my own purpose, not to find her in 
 hysterics. Anyway, I thought to myself, I can now 
 come forthwith to the point, without fear, and I 
 did so. 
 
 " Mrs. Wightman," I said, bluntly, " what are 
 you going to do? " 
 
 She told me, out of a full, full heart, coming to 
 tears at last, but tears of unmixed joy, and not of 
 sorrow. 
 
 '' Woman," said I, when she was done, " how long 
 have you known this?" 
 
 '' Caroline has only just now told me," she said. 
 
A Lord of Lands. 325 
 
 "And how long, pray," said I, "has Carohne 
 known it ? " 
 
 " I did not ask her that," said the woman, " but 
 I beHeve for some time." 
 
 And now I was all but carried off my feet, with 
 my own boundless elation. The thought of the 
 respect due the dead, about whose remains the dust 
 had not yet settled, and the propriety of maintain- 
 ing at least the outward semblance of solemnity, 
 was knocked clean out of my head, and I hope 
 Wightman will forgive me for it w^hen we come to 
 the final judgment, and know^ing something of his 
 solid good sense, I am confident he will. I could 
 have leaped and danced, Hke David before the 
 ark, though I should have made myself even more 
 ridiculous. The more I considered the information 
 which had just been laid before me, the more lifted 
 up I was. I did not tarry with Mrs. Wightman 
 longer than 'to get the particulars rightly in my 
 mind, and they were not many or intricate, for the 
 news, like all truly great news, was short and 
 simple. In a very little while, much less than half 
 an hour, I should say, I was back with Ludovika 
 (I have always suspected I ran most of the way, 
 although I have no recollection and may have taken 
 wings and flown for aught I know to tlie contrary) 
 wearing such a look of joy on my face that she 
 was given scandal by the sight of me. 
 
 " Ludovika, woman," said I, beginning with the 
 least important part of the story with which I was 
 bursting, " the Wightmans are all right." 
 
 "God be praised for that!" said she, but I 
 
326 A Lord of Lands. 
 
 could see that she wondered still why I was so 
 mighty glad. 
 
 " They won't have to give up their farm at all," 
 I went on. 
 
 To this she said nothing, but her eyes were open- 
 ing wider and wider. 
 
 " Caroline," said I, " is to be married." 
 
 "Caroline!" said she, and sank down into the 
 nearest chair, with a little gasp. 
 
 " Caroline," I repeated. 
 
 " And who," said she, looking up at me as if 
 she half divined the truth, " is to marry Caroline? " 
 
 With this there came such a swelling in my throat 
 that I could hardly answer her, though the best of 
 it all yet remained to be told. However, I managed, 
 without much delay, to bring out what was in me. 
 
 " Richy ! " I sputtered, and then I fell into a 
 chair, likewise, being that weak in my knees with 
 the excitement. 
 
 " Rickard?" cried Ludovika, shrilly, in her hard 
 German fashion. 
 
 " That same indecent young ruffian ! " I roared, 
 having got my voice back, and then we burst into 
 tears, the both of us, and sat there, and wept, till 
 we could weep no longer, out of our speechless joy, 
 like the two precious old fools we were. 
 
 THE END. 
 
STIRRING MYSTERY STORIES 
 
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"THE RETURN OF THE ESSAY" 
 
 FABIAN FRANKUN'S PEOPLE AND PROBLEMS 
 
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 Dr. Franklin marks his retirement from the editorship of The 
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FIVE DELIGHTFUL ANTHOLOGIES 
 
 POEMS FOR TRAVELERS 
 
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