Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 211, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1916 — The idyl of TWIN FIRES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The idyl of TWIN FIRES

by WALTER PRICHARD EATON

BYNOPBIS. I grow tired of my work m a college Instructor and buy a New England farm on eight •*

The practical thing for this would-be farmer to do would be to rent his new-bought farm and become an earnest student at the nearest agricultural college. Will he be like most other teachers and persuade himself that he knows it all before he has really learned anything?

CHAPTER 11. y i i' * My Farmer Cornea. Three days later I closed the deal and hastened back to college. Professor Grey of the college botanical department assigned his chief assistant at the gardens to my case. He took me to Boston, and in one day spent exactly 5641 of my precious savings, while. I gasped, helpless in my lgno- , ranee. He bought, it appeared to me, barrels of seeds, tons of fertilizers, thousands of wheel hoes for horse and man. millions of pruning saws and spraying machines, hotbed frames and sashes, tomato trellises, and I knew not what other nameless implements and impedimenta. This was rather disconcerting. But the die was cast, and I came to a sudden realization that seven years of teaching the young idea how to punctuate isn’t the best possible training for running a farm, and if I were to get out of my experiment with a whole skin I bad got to turn to and be my own chief laborer, and hereafter my own purchaser, as well. All that night I packed ahd planned, and the next morning I left college forever. I slipped away quietly, before the chapel bell had begun to ring, avoiding all tender good-bys. I had a stack of experiment-station bulletins in my grip, and during the four hours I spent on the traih my eyes never left their pages. Four hours is not enough to make a man a qualified agriculturist, but it is sufficient to make him humble. I landed at Bentford station, faired a hack, and drove at once to my farm, and my first thought on alighting was this: “Good, Lord, I never realized the frightful condition of that orchard! It will take me a solid week to save any of it, and I suppose I'll have to set out a lot of new trees besides. More expense!” “It’s a dollar up here,” said the driver of the hack, in a mildly insidious voice. 1 paid him brusquely and he drove away. I stood in the middle of the road, my suitcase beside me, the long afternoon shadows coming down through my dilapidated orchard, and surveyed the scene. Milt Noble had gone. So had my enthusiasm. The house was bare and desolate. It hadn’t been painted for twenty years, at least, I decided. My trunks, which I had sent ahead by express, were standing disconsolately on the kitchen porch. Behind me I heard my horse stamping in the stable, and saw my two cows feeding in the pasture. A postcard from one Bert Temple, my nearest neighbor up the Slab City road, had informed me that he was milking them for me-—and, I gathered, for the milk. Well, if be didn’t goodness knew who would! I never felt so lonely, so helpless, so hopeless, in my life. Then an odd fancy struck me. George Meredith made his living, too, by reading manuscripts for a publisher! The picture of George Meredith trying to reclaim a New England farm as an avocation restored my spirits, though just why perhaps it would be difficult ito make anyone but a fellow English instructor understand. I suddenly tossed my suitcase into the barn, and began a tour of inspection over my thirty acres. Tnere was tonic in that turn! That brook ran south close to the road which formed my eastern boundary, along the entire extent of the farm — some three hundred yards. As I followed the brook into the maples and then into the sudden hushed quiet of my little stand of pines, I thought how •all this was mine—my own, to play ■with, to develop as a sculptor molds bis clay, to walk in, to read in, to dream in. Think of owning even a half-acre of pine woods, stillest and coolest of spots! A single great pine, with wide-spreading, storm-tossed branches, like a cedar of Lebanon, stood at the atone wall, jtwt Inside my land. I “Somebody ought to get amusement -out of this!” I said aloud, as I set off for the barn, gathered up my suitcase, and climbed the road toward Bert Temple’s. If I live to be a hundred, I can never repay Bert Temple, artist in cauliflowers and best of friends in my hour of need. Bert and bis wife took me In, treated me as a human, if helpless, fellow being, not as a "city man” to be fleeced, and gave me the best advice and the -best supper a man ever had, meantime assuring me that my cowjs had been tested, and both were sound.

The supper came first. I hadn’t eaten such a supper since grandmother died. There were brown bread Joes—only rival of Rhode Island Johnnycake for the title of the lost ambrosia of Olympus. They were so hot that the butter melted over them instantly, and crisp outside, with delicious, runny insides. “Mrs. Temple,” said I, “I haven't eaten brown bread Joes sitjce I was a boy. I didn't know the secret existed any more." Mrs. Temple beamed over her ample and calico-covered bosom. * "You must hev come from Essex or Middlesex counties,” she said, “if you’ve et brown bread Joes before.” After supper Bert took me in band. “First thing fer you to do’s to git a farmer and carpenter," he said. “I kin git yer both, if yer want I should, an’ not sting yer. . Most uoo folks thet come here gits stung. Seems like Bentford thinks thet’s why they come!” “I’m clay in your bands," said I. “Wall, yer don’t exactly know me Intimately,” said Bert with a laugh, “so yer’d better git a bit o’ granite

Into yer system. Neow, ez to a farmer —there’s Mike Finn. He lives ’bout a quarter of a mile from your corner. He’ll come an’ his son’ll help out with the heavy work. We’ll walk deown an’ see him neow, es yer like.” I liked, and in the soft, spring evening we set off down the road. “Wal, then, ez to carpenters,” Bert went on. “thar’s good carpenters, an’ bad carpenters, an’ Hard Cider Howard. • Hard Cider’s fergotten more about carpeut’rln’ then most o’ the rest ever knoo, and he ain’t fergot much, neither. But he ain’t handsome, and be looks upon the apple juice when it’s yaller. Maybe yer don’t mind looks, an’ I kin keep Hard Cider sober while he’s on your job. He’ll treat yer fair, an’ see thet the plumbers do.” We walked on. turned the corner at my brook, and followed the other road along past my pines till we came to a small settlement of white cottages. At one of these Bert knocked. We were admitted by a pretty, blue-eyed Irish girl, who had a copy of Caesar’s “Commentaries” in her hand. Into a tiqy parlor, where an “airtight” stove stood below a colored chromo of the Virgin and Child, and a middle-aged Irishman sat in his shirtsleeves, smoking a pipe. “Hello, Mike,” said Bert, “this is Mr. John Upton, who’s bought Milt Noble’s place, an’ wants a farmer and gardener. I told him you wuz the man.” “Sit down, sor, sit down.” said Mike, offering a chair with an expansive and hospitable gesture. “Sure, let’s talk it over.” The pretty daughter had gone back to her Caesar by the nickel oil lamp, but she had one ear'toward us, and I caught a corner of her eye, too —an extremely attractive, not to say provocative eye. “Well, now,” Mike was saying, “sure I can run a farm, but what do I be gettin’ fer it?” "Fifty a month,’’ said I, “which includes milking thq cows and tending furnace in winter.” “Sure, I got more than that on me last place and no cows at all.” “Ye’re a liar, Mike,” said Bert. ‘That’s a fightin’ word in the ould country,” said Mike. “This ain’t the old country, and yer got forty-five dollars.” Bert grinned. “Besides, ye’ll be close to yer work. You wuz a mile an’ a half frum the Snlloways. Thet makes up fer the milkin’.” ‘True, true,” Mike replied, meditatively. “But what be yer runnln’ the place for, Mr. Upton? Is it a real farmer ye’d be?” . " .** “A real farmer,” I answered. “Why?" “Well, I didn’t know. I’ve beard ! say yer /wuz a literary feller, too, Mr. I Upton, and I have me doubts.”

-Well, I’m a sort of • literary Toiler,” I confessed. “But It’s you I want to be the real literary feller, Mike. Ton must write me a poem in potatoes.” Mike put back hJs head and roared. **lt*s a pome yer want, la It?” he cried. “Sure, It’s an oration I'll give ye. I’ll grow ye the real home rule pertatere.” “Well,” said I, rising, “do you begin tomorrow morning, and will your son help for a few weeks?” "The mornin’ it is,” said Mike, "and Joe along.” • I paused by the side of the girl. "AH Gaul is divided into three parts,” I laughed. She looked up with A* pretty smile, but Mike spoke: “Sure, but they give all three parts to Nora,” be said, “so what was the use o 4 dividin’ it! She thinks she’s me mlther instead o’ me daughter!” “I’ll put you to bea In a minute,** said Nora, wbile Mike grinned proudly at her. “I’m going to like Mike,” said I to Bert, as we walked back up the road. “I knoo yer would soon ez I seen yer,” Bert replied. "The only folks thet don’t like Mike is the folks thet can’t see a Joke. Mike has a tolerable number o’ dlsllkers.” “Well, I’ve got my tarmer,” said I, “and now I suppose I’ve got to find a housekeeper, as soon as the house Is ready to live in. Nora would suit me.” “I reckon she would, “but she wouldn’t suit Bentford.” “In other words, I want an oldish woman, very plain, and preferably a widow/*' “With a young son old enough ter help on the farm,” Bert added with a grin. “I don’t suppose you know of Just such a combination?” “Reckon I dew. You leave tt to my old lady.” “Mr. Temple,” said I, “seema to me I’m leaving everything to you.” * • “Wal, neow, yer might do a heap sight worse!” said Bert. 1 went up to my chamber when we got back, and sat down beside my little glass lamp and did some figuring. Added to my alleged salary as a manuscript reader, along with what I hoped I could pick up writing, I recklessly calculated my annual Income as a possible $3,000. Out of this I subtracted S6OO for Mike’s wages, S3OO for a housekeeper. S4OO for additional labor, $75 for taxes, and SSOO for additions to my “plant,” as I began to call my farm. Then it occurred to me that I ought, of course, to sell my farm produce for a handsome profit. Bert had gone to bed, so I couldn’t ask him bow much I would be likely to realize. But with all due conservatism T decided that l could safely join the golf club. So I did, then and there. Whereupon I felt better, and, picking out the manuscript of a novel from my bag, I went bravely at the task of earning my living. CHAPTER 111. Joy In an Old Orchard. The following morning was a balmy and exquisite first of May and Bert hustled me off Immediately after breakfast to meet Hard Cider Howard, whom, by some rural wireless, he bad already summoned. As we walked down the road, 1 glanced toward my lone pine, and saw my horse and Mike’s hitched to the plow, with Joe driving and Mike holding the handles. Across the green pasture, between the road and the hayfield, already four rich brown furrows were shining up to the sun. At the house we found awaiting * strange-looking man, small, wrinkled, unkempt, with a discouraged mustache and a nose of a decidedly brighter hue than the rest of his countenance. H« was tapping at the sills of the house. '•How about it, Hard? Cement?** said Bert. Hard Cider nodded to me. with a keen glance from his Uttle, bloodshot eyes. “Yep,” he said. "Stucco over It Brick underpinning be ez good ez noo. Go inside.” _ We stepped upon the side porch, Bert handing me the key and I opening the door of my new dwelling with a secret thrill. Hard Cider at once began on the kitchen floor, ripping up a plank to examine the timbers beneath. We crossed the hall to the south side, where there were two corresponding rooms. Here, as on the other side, the chimney and fireplaces were on the inside walls, and the mantels were of a simple >ut very good colonial pattern, though they had been browned by smoke and time to a dirt color. “Now I want these two rooms made into one,” said I. “I want one of the doors into the hall closed up, and a glass door cut out of the south side to a pergola veranda. Can you do it?” Hard examined the partition. H* climbed on a box which we dragged in, and ripped away plaster and woodwork ruthlessly, both at the top and at places on the sides, all without speaking a word. “Yep,” he said finally, “es yer don’t mind a big cross-beam showin’. She’s solid oak. Yer door, though, ’ll have to be double, with a beam in the middle.” “Fine!” I cried. “One to go in by, one to go out. Guests please keeo to the right!” 4 “Hev ter alter yer chimney,” he added, “or yer*ll hev two fireplaces.!* ; There! After a whirl of ex- jj; ;i; pense and figuring the proses- !j! | sor calls his farm a “plant." <|! And he expects to “earn his liv- ;j; :j: ing!" He may earn it, but will ;! ■ Ii- he get it? Hie first day's work !j I; at hie “plant” may tell ue some- ;j ; thing about that. (TO BB CONTINUSUj *

“All That Night I Packed and Planned."

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