Part 28 (1/2)

CHAPTER LXIII

AN HUNDRED FOLD

Kate declared that she had had the time of her life during her nine weeks' stay at Four Oaks. ”People here every day, and the house full over Sunday. We've kept the place humming,” said she, ”and you may be thankful if you find anything here but a mortgage. When Tom and I get rich, we are going to be farm people.”

”Don't wait for that, daughter. Start your country home early and let it grow up with the children. It doesn't take much money to buy the land and to get fruit trees started. If Tom will give it his care for three hours a week, he will make it at least pay interest and taxes, and it will grow in value every year until you are ready to live on it. Think how our orchards would look now if we had started them ten years ago!

They would be fit to support an average family.”

”There, Dad, don't mount your hobby as soon as ever you get home. But we _have_ had a good time out here. Do you really think farming is all beer and skittles?”

”It has been smooth sailing for me thus far, and I believe it is simply a business with the usual ups and downs; but I mean to make the ups the feature in this case.”

”Are you really glad to get back to it? Didn't you want to stay longer?”

”I had a fine trip, and all that, but I give you this for true; I don't think it would make me feel badly if I were condemned to stay within forty miles of this place for the rest of my life.”

”I can't go so far as that with you, Dad, but perhaps I may when I'm older.”

”Yes, age makes a difference. At forty a man is a fool or a farmer, or both; at fifty the pull of the land is mighty; at sixty it has full possession of him; at seventy it draws him down with other forces than that which Newton discovered, and at eighty it opens for him and kindly tucks the sod around him. Mother Earth is no stepmother, but warm and generous to all, and I think a fellow is lucky who comes to her for long years of bounty before he is compelled to seek her final hospitality.”

”But, Dad, we can't all be farmers.”

”Of course not, and there's the pity of it; but almost every man can have a plot of ground on which each year he can grow some new thing, if only a radish or a leaf of lettuce, to add to the real wealth of the world. I tell you, young lady, that all wealth springs out of the ground. You think that riches are made in Wall Street, but they are not; they are only handled and manipulated. Stop the work of the farmer from April to October of any year, and Wall Street would be a howling wilderness. The Street makes it easier to exchange a dozen eggs for three spools of silk, or a pound of b.u.t.ter for a hat pin, but that's all; it never created half the intrinsic value of twelve eggs or sixteen ounces of b.u.t.ter. It's only the farmer who is a wealth producer, and it's high time that he should be recognized as such. He's the husbandman of all life; without him the world would be depopulated in three years.

You don't half appreciate the profession which your Dad has taken up in his old age.”

”That sounds all right, but I don't think the farmer would recognize himself from that description. He doesn't live up to his possibilities, does he?”

”Mighty few people do. A farmer may be what he chooses to be. He's under no greater limitations than a business or a professional man. If he be content to use his muscle blindly, he will probably fall under his own harrow. So, too, would the merchant or the lawyer who failed to use his intelligence in his business. The farmer who cultivates his mind as well as his land, uses his pencil as often as his plough, and mixes brains with brawn, will not fall under his own harrow or any other man's. He will never be the drudge of soil or of season, for to a large extent he can control the soil and discount the season. No other following gives such opportunity for independence and self-balance.”

”Almost thou persuadest me to become a farmer,” said Kate, as we left the porch, where I had been admiring my land while I lectured on the advantages of husbandry.

Polly came out of the rose garden, where she had been examining her flowers and setting her watch, and said:--

”Kate, you and the grand-girls must stay this month out, anyway. It seems an age since we saw you last.”

”All right, if Dad will agree not to fire farm fancies and figures at me every time he catches me in an easy-chair.”

”I'll promise, but you don't know what you're missing.”

Four Oaks looked great, and I was tempted to tramp over every acre of it, saying to each, ”You are mine”; but first I had a little talk with Thompson.

”Everything has been greased for us this summer,” said Thompson. ”We got a b.u.mper crop of hay, and the oats and corn are fine! I allow you've got fifty-five bushels of oats to the acre in those shocks, and the corn looks like it stood for more than seventy. We sold nine more calves the end of June, for $104. Mr. Tom must have a lot of money for you, for in August we sold the finest bunch of shoates you ever saw,--312 of them.

They were not extra heavy, but they were fine as silk. Mr. Tom said they netted $4.15 per hundred, and they averaged a little over 260 pounds. I went down with them, and the buyers tumbled over each other to get them.