"With what content and merriment,Their days are spent,whose minds are bent To follow the useful plow."That spring I decided if school didn't stop pretty soon,I'd run away again,and I didn't in the least care what they did to me.
A country road was all right and it was good enough,if it had been heaped up,leveled and plenty of gravel put on;and of course our road would be fine,because father was one of the commissioners,and as long as he filled that office,every road in the county would be just as fine as the law would allow him to make it.I have even heard him tell mother that he "stretched it a leetle mite,"when he was forced to by people who couldn't seem to be made to understand what was required to upbuild a nation.
He said our language was founded on the alphabet,and to master it you had to begin with "a".And he said the nation was like that;it was based on townships,and when a township was clean,had good roads,bridges,schoolhouses,and churches,a county was in fine shape,and when each county was in order,the state was right,and when the state was prosperous,the nation could rejoice in its strength.
He said Atlas in the geography book,carrying the world on his back,was only a symbol,but it was a good one.He said when the county elected him to fill an important office,it used his shoulder as a prop for the nation,so it became his business to stand firmly,and use every ounce of strength and brains he had,first of all to make his own possessions a model,then his township,his county,and his state,and if every one worked together doing that,no nation on earth had our amount of territory and such fine weather,so none of them could beat us.
Our road was like the barn floor,where you drove:on each side was a wide grassy strip,and not a weed the length of our land.
All the rails in the fences were laid straight,the gates were solid,sound,and swung firmly on their beams,our fence corners were full of alders,wild roses,sumac,blackberry vines,masses of wild flowers beneath them,and a bird for every bush.Some of the neighbours thought that to drive two rails every so often,lay up the fences straight,and grub out the shrubs was the way,but father said they were vastly mistaken.He said that was such a shortsighted proceeding,he would be ashamed to indulge in it.
You did get more land,but if you left no place for the birds,the worms and insects devoured your crops,and you didn't raise half so much as if you furnished the birds shelter and food.So he left mulberries in the fields and fence corners and wild cherries,raspberries,grapes,and every little scrub apple tree from seeds sown by Johnny Appleseed when he crossed our land.
Mother said those apples were so hard a crane couldn't dent them,but she never watched the birds in winter when the snow was beginning to come and other things were covered up.They swarmed over those trees until spring,for the tiny sour apples stuck just like oak leaves waiting for next year's crop to push them off.She never noticed us,either.After a few frosts,we could almost get tipsy on those apples;there was not a tree in our orchard that had the spicy,teasing tang of Johnny Appleseed's apples.Then too,the limbs could be sawed off and rambo and maiden's-blush grafted on,if you wanted to;father did on some of them,so there would be good apples lying beside the road for passers-by,and they needn't steal to get them.You could graft red haws on them too,and grow great big,little haw-apples,that were the prettiest things you ever saw,and the best to eat.
Father said if it didn't spoil the looks of the road,he wouldn't care how many of his neighbours straightened their fences.If they did,the birds would come to him,and the more he had,the fewer bugs and worms he would be troubled with,so he would be sure of big crops,and sound fruit.He said he would much rather have a few good apples picked by robins or jays,than untouched trees,loaded with wormy falling ones he could neither use nor sell.He always patted my head and liked every line of it when I recited,sort of tearful-like and pathetic:
"Don't kill the birds!the happy birds,That bless the field and grove;So innocent to look upon,They claim our warmest love."The roads crossing our land were all right,and most of the others near us;and a road is wonderful,if it is taking you to the woods or a creek or meadow;but when it is walking you straight to a stuffy little schoolhouse where you must stand up to see from a window,where a teacher is cross as fire,like Miss Amelia,and where you eternally HEAR things you can't see,there comes a time about the middle of April when you had quite as soon die as to go to school any longer;and what you learn there doesn't amount to a hill of beans compared with what you can find out for yourself outdoors.
Schoolhouses are made wrong.If they must be,they should be built in a woods pasture beside a stream,where you could wade,swim,and be comfortable in summer,and slide and skate in winter.The windows should be cut to the floor,and stand wide open,so the birds and butterflies could pass through.You ought to learn your geography by climbing a hill,walking through a valley,wading creeks,making islands in them,and promontories,capes,and peninsulas along the bank.You should do your arithmetic sitting under trees adding hickory-nuts,subtracting walnuts,multiplying butternuts,and dividing hazelnuts.You could use apples for fractions,and tin cups for liquid measure.
You could spell everything in sight and this would teach you the words that are really used in the world.Every single one of us could spell incompatibility,but I never heard father,or the judge,or even the Bishop,put it in a speech.
