Think of being allowed to learn your lessons on the top of the granary,where you could look out of a window above the treetops,lie in the cool wind,and watch swallows and martins.Think of studying in the pulpit when the creek ran high,and the wild birds sang so sweetly you seemed to hear them for the first time in all your life,and hens,guineas,and turkeys made prime music in the orchard.You could see the buds swell,and the little blue flags push through the grass,where Mrs.Mayer had her flowerbed,and the cowslips greening under the water of the swale at the foot of the hill,while there might be a Fairy under any leaf.I was so full,so swelled up and excited,that when I got ready to pick up a book,I could learn a lesson in a few minutes,tell all about it,spell every word,and read it back,front,and sideways.I never learned lessons so quick and so easy in all my life;father,Laddie,and every one of them had to say so.One night,father said to Laddie:"This child is furnishing evidence that our school system is wrong,and our methods of teaching far from right.""Or is it merely proof that she is different,"said Laddie,"and you can't run her through the same groove you could the rest of us?""A little of both,"said father,"but most that the system is wrong.We are not going at children in a way to gain and hold their interest,and make them love their work.There must be a better way of teaching,and we should find different teachers.
You'll have to try the school next year yourself,Laddie.""I have a little plan about a piece of land I am hoping to take before then,"answered Laddie."It's time for me to try my wings at making a living,and land is my choice.I have fully decided.
I stick to the soil!"
"Amen!"cried father."You please me mightily.I hate to see sons of mine thriving on law,literally making their living out of the fruit of other men's discord.I dislike seeing them sharpen their wits in trade,buying at the lowest limit,extorting the highest.I don't want their horizons limited by city blocks,their feet on pavements,everything under the sun in their heads that concerns a scheme to make money;not room for an hour's thought or study in a whole day,about the really vital things of life.After all,land and its products are the basis of everything;the city couldn't exist a day unless we feed and clothe it.In the things that I consider important,you are a king among men,with your feet on soil you own.""So I figure it,"said Laddie.
"And you are the best educated man I have reared,"said father.
"Take this other thought with you:on land,the failure of the bank does not break you.The fire another man's carelessness starts,does not wipe out your business or home.You are not in easy reach of contagion.Any time you want to branch out,your mother and I will stand back of you.""Thank you!"said Laddie."You backed none of the others.They would resent it.I'll make the best start I can myself,and as they did,stand alone."Father looked at him and smiled slowly.
"You are right,as always,"he said."I hadn't thought so far.
It would make trouble.At any rate,let me inspect and help you select your land.""That of course!"said Laddie.
I suspect it's not a very nice thing for me to tell,but all of us were tickled silly the day Miss Amelia packed her trunk and left for sure.Mother said she never tried harder in all her days,but Miss Amelia was the most distinctly unlovable person she ever had met.She sympathized with us so,she never said a word when Leon sang:
"Believe me,if all those endearing young charms,Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,Were to change by to-morrow,and fleet in my arms,Like fairy-gifts fading away,Thou wouldst still be adored,as this moment thou art,Let thy loveliness fade as it will,And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart Would entwine itself verdantly still--"while Miss Amelia drove from sight up the Groveville road.
As he sang Leon stretched out his arms after her vanishing form.
"I hope,"he said,"that you caught that touching reference to `the dear ruin,'and could anything be expressed more beautifully and poetically than that `verdantly still?'"I feel sorry for a snake.I like hoptoads,owls,and shitepokes.
I envy a buzzard the way it can fly,and polecats are beautiful;but I never could get up any sort of feeling at all for Miss Amelia,whether she was birdlike or her true self.So no one was any gladder than I when she was gone.
After that,spring came pushing until you felt shoved.Our family needed me then.If they never had known it before,they found out there was none too many of us.Every day I had to watch the blue goose,and bring in her egg before it was chilled,carrying it carefully so it would not be jarred.I had to hunt the turkey nests and gather their eggs so they would be right for setting.There had to be straw carried from the stack for new nests,eggs marked,and hens set by the dozen.Garden time came,so leaves had to be raked from the beds and from the dooryard.
No one was busier than I;but every little while I ran away,and spent some time all by myself in the pulpit,under the hawk oak,or on the roof.
Coming from church that Sunday,when we reached the top of the Big Hill,mother touched father's arm."Stop a minute,"she said,and he checked the horses,while we sat there and wondered why,as she looked and looked all over the farm,then,"Now drive to the top of the Little Hill and turn,and stop exactly on the place from which we first viewed this land together,"she said.
"You know the spot,don't you?"
"You may well believe I know it,"said father."I can hit it to the inch.You see,children,"he went on,"your mother and I arranged before the words were said over us"--he always put it that way--I never in my life heard him say,"when we were married";he read so many books he talked exactly like a book--"that we would be partners in everything,as long as we lived.
