Part 5 (1/2)
THE GOLDEN POPPY
I have a poppy field. That is, by the grace of G.o.d and the good-nature of editors, I am enabled to place each month divers gold pieces into a clerical gentleman's hands, and in return for said gold pieces I am each month reinvested with certain proprietary-rights in a poppy field. This field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills. Beneath lies all the world. In the distance, across the silver sweep of bay, San Francisco smokes on her many hills like a second Rome. Not far away, Mount Tamalpais thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky; and midway between is the Golden Gate, where sea mists love to linger. From the poppy field we often see the s.h.i.+mmering blue of the Pacific beyond, and the busy s.h.i.+ps that go for ever out and in.
”We shall have great joy in our poppy field,” said Bess. ”Yes,” said I; ”how the poor city folk will envy when they come to see us, and how we will make all well again when we send them off with great golden armfuls!”
”But those things will have to come down,” I added, pointing to numerous obtrusive notices (relics of the last tenant) displayed conspicuously along the boundaries, and bearing, each and all, this legend:
”_Private Grounds_. _No Trespa.s.sing_.”
”Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over our field, because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our acquaintance?”
”How I abhor such things,” said Bess; ”the arrogant symbols of power.”
”They disgrace human nature,” said I.
”They shame the generous landscape,” she said, ”and they are abominable.”
”Piggis.h.!.+” quoth I, hotly. ”Down with them!”
We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Bess and I, looked forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been long denied.
I have forgotten to mention the existence of a house above the poppy field, a squat and wandering bungalow in which we had elected to forsake town traditions and live in fresher and more vigorous ways. The first poppies came, orange-yellow and golden in the standing grain, and we went about gleefully, as though drunken with their wine, and told each other that the poppies were there. We laughed at unexpected moments, in the midst of silences, and at times grew ashamed and stole forth secretly to gaze upon our treasury. But when the great wave of poppy-flame finally spilled itself down the field, we shouted aloud, and danced, and clapped our hands, freely and frankly mad.
And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of the first invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out on my beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a little boy, their arms filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwonted benevolence burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! It is sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All summer shall they pick poppies in my field. But they must be little children, I added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the lower end--this last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows nodding in the wheat beneath my window. Then the razor descended. Shaving was always an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the window again until the operation was completed. And then I was bewildered. Surely this was not my poppy field. No--and yes, for there were the tall pines cl.u.s.tering austerely together on one side, the magnolia tree burdened with bloom, and the j.a.panese quinces splas.h.i.+ng the driveway hedge with blood. Yes, it was the field, but no wave of poppy-flame spilled down it, nor did the great golden fellows nod in the wheat beneath my window. I rushed into a jacket and out of the house. In the far distance were disappearing two huge b.a.l.l.s of colour, orange and yellow, for all the world like perambulating poppies of cyclopean breed.
”Johnny,” said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, ”Johnny, whenever little girls come into our field to pick poppies, you must go down to them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner, tell them it is not allowed.”
Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed earth. Whereupon a neighbour's little girl, at the behest of her mother, duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather a few poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a semaph.o.r.e against the sky.
”Little girl!” called I. ”Little girl!”
The little girl's legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and in high elation I sought Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. n.o.bly she came to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of conciliation and explanation to the little girl's mother. But to this day the little girl seeks cover at sight of me, and I know the mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise have been.
Came dark, overcast days, stiff, driving winds, and pelting rains, day on day, without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling-places like flood-beset rats; and like rats, half-drowned and gasping, when the weather cleared they crawled out and up the green Piedmont slopes to bask in the blessed suns.h.i.+ne. And they invaded my field in swarms and droves, crus.h.i.+ng the sweet wheat into the earth and with l.u.s.tful hands ripping the poppies out by the roots.
”I shall put up the warnings against trespa.s.sing,” I said.
”Yes,” said Bess, with a sigh. ”I'm afraid it is necessary.”
The day was yet young when she sighed again:
”I'm afraid, O Man, that your signs are of no avail. People have forgotten how to read, these days.”
I went out on the porch. A city nymph, in cool summer gown and picture hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read it through with care. Profound deliberation characterized her movements. She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled under the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in both her hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, and she went away. Then I put up more signs.
At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As between the destructive forces and the will ”to live,” the poppies maintained an equilibrium with their environment. But the city folk const.i.tuted a new and terrible destructive force, the equilibrium was overthrown, and the poppies wellnigh perished. Since the city folk plucked those with the longest stems and biggest bowls, and since it is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, big-bowled poppies failed to go to seed, and a stunted, short-stemmed variety remained to the hills. And not only was it stunted and short-stemmed, but spa.r.s.ely distributed as well. Each day and every day, for years and years, the city folk swarmed over the Piedmont Hills, and only here and there did the genius of the race survive in the form of miserable little flowers, close-clinging and quick-blooming, like children of the slums dragged hastily and precariously through youth to a shrivelled and futile maturity.
On the other hand, the poppies had prospered in my field; and not only had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the birds.
Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed unharvested each year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy seeds were hidden from the keen-eyed songsters. And further, climbing after the sun through the wheat stalks, the poppies grew taller and taller and more royal even than the primordial ones of the open.
So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing, burning field, were sorely tempted, and, it must be told, as sorely fell. But no sorer was their fall than that of my beloved poppies. Where the grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is moist, and in such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the roots than to break the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk, are inclined to move along the line of least resistance, and for each flower they gathered, there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds and with them all the possibilities and future beauties of the plant for all time to come.
One of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman, with white hands and s.h.i.+fty eyes, especially made life interesting for me. We called him the ”Repeater,” what of his ways. When from the porch we implored him to desist, he was wont slowly and casually to direct his steps toward the fence, simulating finely the actions of a man who had not heard, but whose walk, instead, had terminated of itself or of his own volition. To heighten this effect, now and again, still casually and carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another poppy. Thus did he deceitfully save himself the indignity of being put out, and rob us of the satisfaction of putting him out, but he came, and he came often, each time getting away with an able-bodied man's share of plunder.