Autumn Part 2

"We must certainly have a few hills of squash," said Mrs. Grumble firmly.

"Oh," said Mr. Jeminy, "squash. . . ."

He had left it out on purpose, because he disliked it. "You see," he said finally, looking about him artlessly, "there's no more room."

"Go away," said Mrs. Grumble.

From his seat under a tree, to which he had retired, Mr. Jeminy watched Mrs. Grumble mark the rows, hoe the straight, shallow furrows, drop in the seeds, and cover them with earth again. As he watched, half in indignation, he thought: "Thus, in other times, Ceres sowed the earth with seed, and, like Mrs. Grumble, planted my garden with squash. I would have asked her rather to sow melons here." Just then Mrs.

Grumble came to the edge of the vegetable garden.

"Seed potatoes are over three dollars a bushel," she said: "it's hardly worth while putting them in."

"Then let's not put any in," Mr. Jeminy said promptly, "for they are difficult to weed, and when they are grown you must begin to quarrel with insects, for whose sake alone, I almost think, they grow at all."

"The bugs fall off," said Mrs. Grumble, "with a good shaking."

"Fie," said Mr. Jeminy, "how slovenly. It is better to kill them with lime. But it is best of all not to tempt them; then there is no need to kill them."

And as Mrs. Grumble made no reply, he added:

"That is something G.o.d has not learned yet."

"Please," said Mrs. Grumble, "speak of G.o.d with more respect."

After supper Mr. Jeminy sat in his study reading the story of Saint Francis, the Poor Brother of a.s.sisi. One day, soon after the saint had left behind him the gay affairs of town, to embrace poverty, for Jesus'

sake, and while he was still living in a hut of green branches near the little chapel of Saint Damian, he beheld his father coming to upbraid him for what he considered his son's obstinate folly. At once Saint Francis, who was possessed of a quick wit, began to gather together a number of old stones, which he tried to place one on top of the other.

But as fast as he put them up, the stones, broken and uneven, fell down again. "Aha," cried old Bernadone, when he came up to his son, "I see how you are wasting your time. What are you doing? I am sick of you."

"I am building the world again," said Francis mildly; "it is all the more difficult because, for building material, I can find nothing but these old stones."

Mr. Jeminy gave his pupils their final examination in a meadow below the schoolhouse. There, seated among the dandelions, with voices as shrill as the crickets, they answered his questions, and watched the clouds, like great pillows, sail on the wind from west to east. Under the shiny sky, among the warm, sweet fields, Mr. Jeminy looked no more important than a robin, and not much wiser. Had the children been older, they would have tried all the more to please him, but because they were young, they laughed, teased each other, blew on blades of gra.s.s, and made dandelion chains. Mr. Jeminy examined the Fifth Reader. "Bound the United States," he said.

"On the west by the Pacific Ocean," began a red-cheeked plowboy, to whom the ocean was no more than hearsay.

"Where is San Francisco?"

"San Francisco is in California."

"Where is Seattle?"

But no one knew. Then Mr. Jeminy thought to himself, "I am not much wiser than that. For I think that Seattle is a little black period on a map. But to them, it is a name, like China, or Jerusalem; it is here, or there, in the stories they tell each other. And I believe their Seattle is full of interesting people."

"Well, then," he said, "let me hear you bound Vermont."

That was something everybody knew.

He took the First and Second Reader through their sums. "Two apples and two apples make . . ."

"Four apples."

"And three apples from eight apples leave . . ."

"Five apples."

When spelling time came, the children, going down to the foot, rolled over each other in the gra.s.s, with loud shouts. At last only two were left to dispute the letters in asparagus, elephant, constancy, and philosophical. Then Mr. Jeminy gathered the children about him.

"The year is over," he said, "and you are free to play again. But do not forget over the summer what you learned with so much difficulty during the winter. Let me say to you who will not return to school: I have taught you to read, to write, to add and subtract; you know a little history, a little geography. Do not be proud of that. There are many things to learn; but you would not be any happier for having learned them.

"You will ask me what this has to do with you. I would like to teach you to be happy. For happiness is not in owning much, but in owning little: love, and liberty, the work of one's hands, fellowship, and peace. These things have no value; they are not to be bought; but they alone are worth having. Do not envy the rich man, for cares destroy his sleep. And do not ask the poor man not to sing, for song is all he has.

"Love poverty, and labor, the poverty of love, the wealth of the heart.

"Be wise and honest farmers.

"School is over. You may go."

The children ran away, laughing; the boys hurried off together to the swimming hole, their casual shouts stealing after them down the road.

Mr. Jeminy, lying on his back in the gra.s.s, listened to them sadly. As the voices grew fainter and fainter, it seemed to him as if they were saying: "School is over, school is over." And he thought: "They are counting the seasons. But to the old, the year is never done."

Mr. Frye, who had been sitting quietly by the road during Mr. Jeminy's little speech to the children, now got up, and went back to the village, shaking his head solemnly with every step.

III

THE BARLYS

The two hired men on Barly's farm rose in the dark and crept downstairs. By sun-up, Farmer Barly was after them, in his brown overalls; he came clumping into the barn, dusty with last year's hay, and peered about him in the yellow light. He opened the harness room, and took out harness for the farm wagons; he went to ask if the horses had been watered.

The cows were in pasture; in the wagon shed the two men, before a tin basin, plunged their arms into water, flung it on their faces, and puffed and sighed. The shed was cold, and redolent of earth. Outside, the odor of coffee, drifting from the house, mingled in the early morning air with clover and hay, cut in the fields, but not yet stored.

Anna Barly, from her room, heard her mother moving in the kitchen, and sat up in bed. The patch-work quilt was fallen on the floor, where it lay as sleepy as its mistress. She tossed her hair back from her face; it spread broad and gold across her shoulders, and the wide sleeves of her nightdress, falling down her arms, bared her round, brown elbows as she caught it up again.

In the kitchen, the two hired men, their faces wet and clean, poured sugar over their lettuce, and talked with their mouths full.

"I hear tell of a borer, like an ear-worm, spoiling the corn. . . .

But there's none in our corn, so far as I can see."

"Never been so much rain since I was born."

"A bad year."

"Well," said Mrs. Barly, "that's no wonder, either, with prices what they are, and you two eating your heads off, for all the work you do."

"Now, then," said her husband hastily, "that's all right, too, mother."

Anna stood at the sink, and washed the dishes. Her hands floated through the warm, soapy water like lazy fish, curled around plates, swam out of pots; while her thoughts, drowsy, sunny in her head, pa.s.sed, like her hands, from what was hardly seen to what was hardly felt.