Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 212, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1916 — The IDYL of TWIN FIRES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The IDYL of TWIN FIRES

by WALTER PRICHARD EATON

SYNOPSIS. —3— I grow tired of my work M a college Instructor and buy a New England farm on sight. I Inspect my farm and go to board at Bert Temple’s. Bert helps me to hire a carpenter and a farmer. Hard Cider, the carpenter, estimates the repairs and changes necessary on the house.

How would you like to start In to work such a place as this man had saddled himself with, having no mor© knowledge of farming than he had? Will he know how and where to take hold?

CHAPTER lll—Continued. “Fine again!” cried I. “A long room with two fireplaces, and a doublefaced bookcase coming out at right angles between them, with two settles below it, one for esch fireplace! Better than I’d dreamed!" “Sult yerself,” said Hard— My front doorway had once been a thing of beauty, with two little panel ■windows at the sides, and above all. on the outside, a heavy, hand-carved broken pediment, like the top of a Governor Winthrop highboy. Hard looked at It with admiration gleaming in his eyes. “I’d ruther restore this than all the rest o’ the job,” he said, and his ugly, rum-soaked little face positively shone with enthusiasm. “Go ahead," said I; “only I want the new steps qf brick, widely spaced, with a lot of cement showing between. I’m going to terrace it here In front, too — a grass terrace for ten feet out.” “Thet’s right, thet’s right!” he exclaimed. “Now I’ll go order the lumber an’ bring yer the estimate termorrer.” “Seems to me the usual proceeding would be the other way around!” I gasped. “Well, yer want me ter do the job. don’t yer? Or don’t yer?” he said brusquely. “Of course, of course!” I amended hastily. “Go ahead!” Hard climbed into a broken-down wagon, and disappeared. ’.-Don't you worry,” said Bert. “I’ll see he treats yer right.” “It Isn’t that,” I said sadly. “It’s that I’ve just remembered I forgot to include any painters’ bills in my own estimate.”

Bert looked at me In a kind of speechless pity for a moment. Then he said slowly: “Wai, I’ll be swizzled! Wait till I tell maw! An’ her always stickin’ up fer a college education!’’ “Just for that, I’ll show you!” cried I. “I never trimmed an apple tree in my life, but I’m going to work on this orchard, and I’m going to save it, all myself. It will be better than yours in three years.” “Go to it.” laughed Bert. “Come back fer dinner, though.. Neow I’ll drive over ter the depot an’ git yer freight. They telephoned this mornin’ it had come.” “Good!” I cried. “You might bring me a bag of cement, too, and a gallon of carbolic acid.” j‘Ye ain’t tired o’ life so soon, be yer?” “No,” said I, “but I’m going to show you rubes how to treat an orchard.” Bert went off laughing, and presently I saw him driving toward town with

bls heavy wagon. I walked up to the plateau field to greet Mike. As I crested the ridge the field lay before me, the great lone pine standing sentinel iat the farther side, and half of it was •frail, young green, and half rich, shining brown. "She plows tough, sor,” said Mike. aS the panting horses paused for breatli, “but she’ll barret down good. Be the seed pertaters come yit?” “Bert has gone for them,” said I. “Let me hold the plow once.” "It ain’t so azy as it looks,” said Mika. _

Coeye-lOHT ooueLeony, PA&e O co. “I’ll do It If I haven't a rib left,” said I grhqly. And I did It. My first full furrow looked like the track of a snake under the Influence of liquor, but I reversed the plojv and came back fairly straight. I was beginning to get the hang of It. My next furrow was respectable, but not deep. On this return trip the sweat was starting from my forehead, and the smell of the horses and of the warm, fresh-turned earth ,was strong In my nostrils. 1 didn’t look at my pine. I was proud at what I had done, and my muscles gloried in the toil. Agaip I swung the plow around, and drove It across the field, feeling the reluctant grass roots fighting every muscle of my arms. “There.” said I. triumphantly, "you plow all the rest as deep as that!” “Begobs, ye’z alkrigbt!” cried Mike. I went back again down the slope with all the joy of a small boy and descended upon the orchard. I bad a couple of bulletins on pruning in my pocket, with pictures of old trees remorselessly headed down. I took a fresh look at the pictures, reread some of the text where I had marked It, and tackled the first tree, carefully repeating to myself: “Remove only a third the first year, remove only a third the first year.” This, I decided, quite naturally did not refer to dead wood. By the time I had the dead wood cut out of that first old tree, and all the water sprouts removed (as I recalled my grandfather used to call them), which didn’t seem necessary for new bearing wood, the poor thing began to look naked. On one side an old water spout or sucker had achieved the dignity of a limb and shot far into the air. I was up in the tree carefully heading this back and out when Bert came driving by with his wagon heaped to overflowing. “Hi!” he called, "yer tryin’ to kill them trees entire!” I got down and came out to the road. “You’re a fine man and a. true friend, Mr. Temple,” said I, "but T'm going to be the doctor for this orchard. A chap's got to have some say for himself, you know.” “Well, they ain’t much good, anyhow, them trees,” said Bert cheer-, fully. We now fell to unloading the wagon. We opened up the woodsheds and storehouse behind the kitchen, stou ed in the barrels of seed potatoes, the fertilizers, the various other seeds, the farm implements, sprayers, and so on. The hotbed frames and sashes were put away for future use, as.it was too late to need them now. The horse hoe Bert had not been able to bring on this trip. Next we got my books and furniture into the house or shed, and, tired, hot and dirty, we drove on up the road for dinner. As we passed the upper field, I saw that the plowing was nearly done. The brown furrows -had already lost their gloss, as my hands had already lost their whiteness.

“Well, I'm a farmer now!” said I, surveying my soil-caked boots and grimy clothes. “Yer on the- way, anyhow,” said Bert. “But yer’ll have ter cultivate thet field bard, seein’s how It oughter bev been plowed last fall.” That afternoon I went back to my orchard, got out my shiny and sharp new doubled-edged pruning saw, and sawed till both arms ached. As I worked, I thought how this orchard must be trimmed and cleaned up first, but how the fine planting weather was upon us, too, and I ought to be getting my garden seeds in. if I was to have any flowers. I thought, also, of all my manuscripts to be read. A nervous fit seized me, and I worked frantically. t , That night I managed to keep awake till eleven, and get some work done. I also rose at a compromise hour of six In the morning, and worked another hour, almost catching up with what should have been my daily stint. But I realized that hereafter I could not work on the farm all day. I must give up my mornings to my manuscript reading. “Well,” thought I, “I’ll -do it —as soon as the orchard is finished.” As sobn as the orchard w r as finished! I stood amid the litter I had made on the ground, and reflected. I bad completed the preliminary trimming of one row and part of a second. There were still over two rows and a half to do. And the worst trees were in those rows, at that. After they were trimmed, there was all the litter to clear out, and the stubs to be painted, and cement work to be done. “Good gracious!” thought I, “if I do all that, when will 1 plant, when will I make my lawn?” *■.•» • • • • Have you ever watched a small boy picking berries? He never picks r a bush clean, but rushes after this or that ‘big cluster of fruit which strikes the eye, covering half an acre of ground while you. perhaps, are stripping a single clump of bushes. And he is usually amazed when your pail fills quicker than hig.., I fear I was much like that smalTboy during my first season on the farm, or at any rate during tire first month or two. There was little “efficiency” in my methods—but, oh, much delight!

As I had planned to put my garden cold frames along the south of the kitchen, I decided to make my temporary seedbeds there. Mike assented to the plan as a good one, and I had him dump me a load of manure, while I brought earth from the nearest point In the garden, spaded up the soil, mixed in the garden earth and dressing, and then worked and reworked it with a rake, and finally with my hands. Ah, the joy of working eartb.with your naked hands, making it ready for planting! The ladies I had seen in their gardens always wore gloves. Even my mother, I recalled, in her little garden, had always worn gloves. Surely, thought I, they miss something —the cool, moist feel of the loam, the very sensations of the seeds themselves. At four o’clock I bad ray bed ready, and. I got my seed packets, sorted them in a tin tobacco box. and began to sow the seeds. The directions which I read with scrupulous care always said, "Press the earth

down firmly with a board.” 1 was working with a flat mason’s trowel, so I got up and found a board. It wasn’t half so easy to work with, but I was taking no chances! Mike and Joe were unhitching the horse from the harrow as I finished. The great, brown slope of the vegetable garden, lying away from the house toward the ring of southern hills, was ready for planting. There was my farm, thence would come my profits —if profits there should be. But just at that moment the little strip of soaked seedbed behind me was more Important. It stood for the color box with which I was going to paint, for the fragrant pigments out of which I should create about my dwelling a dream of gardens. “After all,” I thought, “a country place is but half realized without its garden, even though it be primarily a farm, and. the richness of country living is but half fulfilled unless we become painters with shrub and tree and flower. I cannot draw, uor sing, nor play. Perhaps I cannot even write. But surely 1 can express myself here, about me, in color and landscape charm, and not be any the worse farmer for that. I have my work; I shall write; I ‘shall be a farmer; I shall be a gardener—an artist in flowers; I shall make my house lovely within; I shall live a rich, full life. Surely lam a happy, a fortunate, man!!’ I put the watering pot back in the shed, crossed the road to the old wooden pump by the barn on a sudden impulse, and pumped water on my hands and head, for I was hot. Mike stood in the barn door and laughed. “What are yez doin’ that for?” he asked: I stood up and shook the water from my face and hair. “Just to be a kid, I guess.” I laughed. There are .some tiling Mike couldn’t Understand. Perhaps I did not clearly understand myself. In some dim way an old pump before barn and the shock of water from its spout on my head was fraught with happy memories and with dreams. The sight of the pump at that moment had waked f the echo of their mood. But as I plodded up the road in the May twilight to supper, one of those memories came back with haunting clearness —a summer day, a long tramp, the tender wistfulness of young love shy at its own too sudden passion. the plunge of cool water from a pump, and then at twilight half-spoken words, and words unspoken, sweetei still! The amethyst glow wdnt off the hills that ring our valley, and a far blue peak faded into the gathering dusk. A light shivered off my spirit, too. I felt suddenly cold, and the cheery face o* Mrs. Temple was the face of a stran ger. I felt unutterably lonely and depressed. My farm was dust and ashes. That evening I savagely turned down a manuscript by a rather well l known author, and went to bed without confessing what was the matte* with me. The matter was, I bad pumped up a ghost. '

At least he can plow—a little. And trim trees —a little. But wait until he breaks loose In an entirely different direction and then figure out just how long his money is going te last.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

"Well Yer Want Me to Do the Job, Don’t Yer?"

And Pumped Water on My Hands and Head.