Gilbert K. Chesterton - "The Napoleon of Notting Hill"

James J. Walsh - "Old Time Makers of Medicine"

Various - "Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883"

Unknown - "Pages for Laughing Eyes"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Watch Yourself Go By

A >> Al. G. Field >> Watch Yourself Go By




Alfred was advised that a club, of which he was an honorary member,
would entertain him--that it would be a farmer's night. Alfred well knew
there would be great fun at the expense of the farmer. He would be the
butt of all the jokes the busy brains of a dozen or more keen wits could
devise. Therefore, he studied for days that he might in a humorous way
parry the jibes. Nothing humorous in connection with the farm could be
evolved from his brain. He was too ambitious, too enthusiastic a farmer
to ridicule any phase of his newly adopted calling.

Therefore, when the chairman concluded his introduction in these words:
"And now, gentlemen, we have a farmer as our guest here tonight. It has
been the plaint of the farmer from time out of mind that he had not
representation; that he had not voice in affairs that had to do with his
vocation. The newly made clod-hopper is respectfully informed that he
can air his grievances to the fullest extent and that, unlike others, we
will not pass resolutions of acquiescence in his views and then
repudiate them. We will file them in our archives as a memento of the
fact that another good man has gone wrong. Alfred, it is the fear of all
your friends in this club that the minstrel show will not make enough
money to run the farm."

[Illustration: Alfred as a Farmer]

Alfred replied to the introduction:

"Gentlemen, the introduction honors me; to be a farmer has been the
dream of my life. Beginning life on a farm, I ask no more pleasant
ending than to live the last days of my earthly time on a farm.

"The facetious remarks of the toastmaster do not explain my reasons for
engaging in farming. It is true, financial consideration did not govern
me in this matter, although I do hope to make the farm self-supporting.
If I do not, I shall not feel that I have made a bad investment.

"In seeking the quietude of the farm, I was actuated by that yearning
that comes to all men who have led a busy life--to turn back the years
and try to live the days of patches, freckles, stone bruises and
laughter; to live those days again when there was only one care in the
world, not to be late for meals.

"I want to go way back yonder in my life to a house half hidden from
view by the locusts and maples, where the bees hummed and swarmed. I
want a scent of the honeysuckle as the maples and locusts budded forth
in what seemed to me the morning of the world--springtime. I want to
follow the path down by the big spring, through the hazel bushes, where
the cotton tail jumped up just ahead of you and the redbird sang his
sweetest song. I can follow the path in my mind as the hunting dog
follows the scent, down to the old rock hole where the clear, cool
waters of the creek formed an eddy, in which the chub and yellow perch
lurked and jumped at the bait as they never did anywhere else.

"I want to feel that ecstacy that only comes to a boy when the bottle
cork you used for a bobber goes under water, when something is pulling
on the line like a scared mule, bending double the pole cut in the
thicket on your way to the creek. I want to throw the pole away, roll up
the tangled line, hide it away in the corn crib, and sneak back to the
house the opposite direction from the creek, that the folks wouldn't
suspect I had been fishing on Sunday.

"I want to go back yonder in my life where the hills meet the sky in a
purple haze, where you feel yourself growing with the trees, where the
smell of new earth calls you to the woods, where the dogwood is budding
and the may-apple peeps up through last year's leaves at the new leaves
budding out on the grand old maples above.

"I want to go so far back from the worries of city life that the crowing
of the cock and the cackle of the hen will tell me it is morning,
instead of the clanging of bells and blowing of whistles. I want to go
back yonder where the setting sun, instead of the city lights, will tell
me it is night. I want to hear the cricket and whip-poor-will as we
heard them in the evenings long ago, as we listened with bated breath to
the jack o'-lantern legends that stirred our childish fancy until the
croaking of the frogs sent us to bed to dream of uncanny things.

"I want to live in the happiness of an autumn when the frost was on the
pumpkin and the fodder in the shock; when the hickory nuts falling on
the ground called the squirrels; when the stars gleamed bright enough to
afford you light to bring a 'possum out of a tree with the old flintlock
musket--how you cherished that gun. And when the snow hid the roads and
paths like the white coverlet on the big bed in the spare room and the
big backlog crackled and burned on the hearth, and the red apples
glistened in the firelight, and the popcorn imitation of a snowstorm was
more realistic than any artificial one that you have since witnessed.

"How you shivered as you undressed in the room above going to bed, but
how soundly you slept after you got warm. I want to go back to one of
those hallowed Sunday mornings in summer when the hush of heaven seemed
to fall on earth; when the quiet that spread over hill and vale seemed
to announce the Spirit of God in some unusual sense; when the peace of
heaven seemed so near you felt its happiness.

"While living the old days over--the days way back yonder--I want to
live in the love of my friends of today. Whilst I cherish only a memory
of the friends of the old days, I hold, after my family, the love and
esteem of my friends of today above all things in this life.

"Gentlemen, come down to the farm. Visit with me and endeavor to live
the life of a boy again, if only for a day."

[Illustration: Bill Brown as a Farmer]

Alfred's response was not what the assemblage expected. Congratulations
were showered upon him. The speech was reproduced in newspapers all over
the country. Printed copies of it were circulated. The sentiment
expressed therein seemed to have struck a responsive chord in the hearts
of all men who love to live close to Nature. It does not seem possible
that any one would have the hardihood to endeavor to controvert the
sentiments set forth in Alfred's tribute to the "Back to the Farm" life,
yet there appeared in all the papers that had given publicity to
Alfred's speech, a diatribe from Bill Brown, headed "The Truth," as
follows:

PITTSBURGH, PA.

I have read with much interest Al. G. Field's address on "The
Farm." If you will pardon my profanity for a minute, I will say
"Damn the Farm."

Our paths through the woods on the farm must have been
different. Al. pursued the cotton tail through the level and
green grassy meadows, getting pleasure in pursuit, and which
left no traces of his going; I pursued the ever ready pole cat
through hollows, over logs and stone piles, which left nothing
but bruises, but I found more pleasure in pursuit than
possession.

Al. had patches, freckles and laughter; I had rags, bruises and
tears. Al. took the path down to the spring through the hazel
bushes; I took the stony road to a mudhole through thorns and
blackberry bushes.

Al. caught nice yellow perch with a cork bobber; I caught
suckers with a paper bobber, for there were no corks used on our
farm. Al. fished on Sunday; I went to church at 10 o'clock,
Sunday School at 11, church again at 1:30, and perchance prayer
meeting in the evening.

Al. smelled the new earth from a two seated surrey or horseback;
I smelled the new earth from the back of the harrow or plow.

Al. watched the dogwoods bud, and breathed their fragrance as
they budded; I felt the dogwood switches drop on my poor back
and bare limbs.

Al. had to be told when it was dark and when it was morning. I
knew when I was told to quit work that it was dark and bed-time,
and knew that it was daylight when I was yanked out of bed to
walk two miles before breakfast to bring in a lot of cows.

Al. had a nice "coverlit" over his bed, and turned into a nice
feather bed and rested in peace. I rolled myself up in a
worn-out horse blanket, and turned into a tick filled with
straw, shivering until I got to sleep and kept on shivering. Oh
yes, I cherish the days on the farm and will never forget them.

But a more pleasant recollection to me is the day that I left
the cackling of the hens, the braying of the donkey, the
bellowing of the cows, and the old plow standing in the furrow,
where I hope it still stands.

The new stack of hay might have brought fragrance to Al's
sensitive nostrils, but to me it seemed as well suited as a
reservoir for perfume as for a monument in a cemetery.

I want to live in the love and esteem of my friends of today; I
cherish the memory of the old friends, and I value their love
and esteem, but the memory of the old straw pile back of the
barn still clings to me closer than all these, and e'er I get
ready to go back to the darned old farm, I will make myself a
pair of wooden bills and perch myself on the stake and rider
fence, prepared to take my turn with the hennery.

"Visit me," he says, "and endeavor to live the life of a boy
over again on the farm." Not for Bill, and I can but repeat what
I said in my profane way, again and again.

Al. can have the farm, but as for me it's first "back to the
mines, Bill." With sad memories of the milk pail, the fork and
curry comb, I am,

Sadly and sorrowfully yours,
BILL BROWN.

Insofar as Alfred's knowledge goes, Bill Brown's pessimistic views of
farm life were not accepted by any save Alfred's immediate family.
Alfred carried a copy of his address, "A Glimpse of Nature, or Back to
the Farm" in his pocket. Mrs. Field preserved Bill Brown's screed. As
one prediction of Bill's after another came to pass, she would say to
Alfred: "There, see there? Even Mr. Brown knew what would come of this
farming business."

The dyke was constructed and would no doubt have answered the purpose
intended had it not been constructed of clayey soil that disintegrated
and floated away with the muddy current the first freshet.

Chickens were the first purchases. Rhode Island Reds, Alfred asserted,
were superior as farm chickens. They were good layers, good setters and
good mothers. One hundred hens and two roosters were the basis of the
poultry plant. Alfred had read that one hundred hens properly catered to
would produce on an average five dozens of eggs a day. Eggs were fifty
cents a dozen. He figured that fifteen dollars a week would be pretty
good. Of course, he had forgotten that farm hands eat eggs. Two dozen
eggs were brought to the city and delivered to the home of Alfred, where
the family rests up in the winter from the farm labors of the summer.
"Of course, it's not what I expected," he consolingly admitted to his
wife, "but you can't move chickens from one place to another and have
them do well. Howard Park says so and he has had a heap of chicken
experience. They will do better when you get out there. You will feed
them properly and regularly. Their laying streak has been broken up. We
must train them to lay while eggs are expensive and lay off when they
are cheap."

Alfred insisted Pearl keep a "farm book," entering on one page the
expenditures opposite the receipts. After two months Alfred declared the
book a trouble and worry. "Just spend what you have to and let it go at
that. Howard Park says everybody has the same experience when they first
go into farming." There were two entries on the two pages of receipts,
nineteen pages of expenditures:

February 14th--Credit by 2 dozen eggs $ .98
March 11th--One bull 35.00

Alfred bought the bull from a neighboring farmer. "Registered Jersey,
worth at least $100; I got him for $75," boasted Alfred. "The man needed
the money." It was learned later that the bull had been accidently shot
by trespassing hunters and permanently disabled. When Alfred was put
wise to this, he sold the bull for beef.

[Illustration: "I Want a Rooster for Every Hen"]

In the grocery bill, (Alfred furnished everything), there was a charge
of four dollars and thirty cents for eggs. Alfred argued to his wife it
was for hatching eggs for the incubator; that he had instructed Mrs.
Roost she must raise four hundred chickens at least. But Mrs. Roost,
over the telephone, advised that farmers must have eggs to eat and she
always cleared her coffee with eggs, and our hens were not laying and
that most of them had the roup, and you can't expect eggs when you only
got two roosters for a hundred hens. Alfred called up Mrs. Reed and
advised that he must have more roosters. "How many do you wish?" she
inquired.

[Illustration: AL. G. FIELD, 1886]

"Well, we are not getting any eggs. I want a rooster for every hen. I'm
bound to have eggs."

The wife changed her mind as to Rhode Island Reds. She declared the only
person she knew that had good luck with Rhode Island Reds was Mrs. Mott
and she just lived with her chickens. "Now, Mrs. Goodrich has Barred
Plymouth Rocks and they are the chickens." Alfred ordered a flock of
Barred Plymouth Rocks. Someone recommended to Alfred Black Minorcas.
Charley Schenck had a pen he wished to dispose of. Alfred figured that
since they had experienced so much bad luck with one breed they would
soon strike a winner by having several kinds. Therefore, when S. S.
Jackson presented Alfred with a pen of India Games, you could look out
upon the chicken lot at any time of day and see three or four
cock-fights in progress at the same time. The hands were kept from their
work, attracted by the gameness of the cocks.

A beautiful litter, (as Alfred termed them), of top-knots, Van Houden
chickens, were the next addition to the poultry yard. When cautioned
that he would soon have a polyglot lot of poultry, Alfred, for the first
time, weakened on the chicken proposition; more for the reason that he
was disgusted with their polygamous propensities. Although living in one
herd, he imagined that each breed would live to itself. Alfred dubbed
them "Mormons."

Pearl and Mrs. Field had become interested in the little chicks. As hen
after hen came off, her brood was carried to the house and endeavors
made to raise the chicks by hand. They had some forty or fifty, when
rats, or a "varmint" penetrated the coop and twenty-four were killed in
one night. The sorrow caused by this loss of their pets was partly
compensated for by the closer ties formed with those spared. Each one
was named. When either Pearl or Aunt Tillie passed out of the kitchen
door, the chicks would fly to meet them. Stooping down to feed them,
they would fly on the shoulders of the two women.

One of the grocery bills rendered contained an item, "Four dollars for
chickens." Mrs. Mott had also sold Mrs. Field quite a number of
chickens. Alfred supposed these chickens were for breeding purposes. One
Sunday the table was without chicken. Mrs. Field explained she had no
one to go after them. "I'd have shot them for you if you had advised me
you wanted chickens killed." "Chickens killed?" repeated both Pearl and
Aunt Tillie, "Well, I'd like to see you or anyone else kill _our_
chickens. Why, there's Betty, Biddy, Snooks, Dick and Kelly; they're
just like humans. You don't imagine for a moment we will kill any of
_our_ chickens, do you?" And Alfred bought chickens for the table all
summer.

Alfred promised his wife that he would look after the farming part. The
chickens and dairy came under her charge. He therefore, sat down to his
desk and wrote out minute instructions as to fields to be planted and
designated the crops to sow in each field. He ordered a hill field, near
the barn, sowed in buckwheat. The farmer meekly intimated that ten acres
of buckwheat and five acres of oats seemed rather disproportional.
"Never mind, follow my order," haughtily commanded Alfred. "None of us
care for rolled oats and we all like buckwheat cakes." Alfred discharged
his regular farmer; he claimed the man got up too early; he got up at
four o'clock and threshed around making so much noise nobody could
sleep.

The hills had not been plowed in years. The land was shaly, easily
washed. It rained from the day the family moved onto the farm until late
in June. Seeds of all kinds from the fields above washed down into the
bottoms below. Beans, potatoes, egg plant, rye, peas, beets and cow peas
grew in the bottom as only noxious weeds and wild crops grow. From this
conglomeration sprang the noted bean that Bill Brown and Alfred are
forming a company to distribute.

The rain continued. The weather being cool, fires were necessary.
Nothing but wood was used as fuel. The wife protested the heat for
cooking was not sufficient. It just dried the juices in the meats. A
heating plant was put in. Kerosene lamps did not produce sufficient
light, so a lighting plant was installed. Springs and well were unhandy.
Alfred installed a water plant. Alfred swore you might just as well live
in the city if you had all city fixin's. The walks in the yard and
across the lawn were inches thick with mud. Pearl and Mrs. Field, by the
light of the wood fire, would read Bill Brown's life on the farm, while
Alfred watched the barometer. The women began to talk about moving back
to town. Alfred was as miserable as life could make him. Day after day
the rain fell in torrents. The dam that formed the lake wherein Alfred
intended raising fish in summer, and a skating pond in winter, and also
to furnish ice, broke, flooding the cow stables, washing out the sweet
corn patch and the garden floated.

Alfred was unmercifully berated that he had dragged his family to the
country, destroying their happiness and spending all his money
for--what, for what? Just to gratify a whim, a boyish illusion.

Alfred felt he must do something to turn the tide. The rain kept
falling. He started to the city on his mysterious errand. Returning he
proudly hung above the mantle piece this motto:

"It hain't no use to grumble and complain,
It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice;
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,
Why, rain's my choice."

The rain ceased. The sun shone, the grasses grew. Happiness came into
the family. Ere the summer was over, farm life had so ingratiated
itself that they did not relish the idea of moving back to the city.

Bill Brown is ever kind. He sent a half dozen guineas, advising they
were "chicken-house sentinels." They multiplied more rapidly than any
fowls known; that the hen laid forty and fifty eggs in one nest. Mr.
Field and all the hands followed those guineas all summer, nor did
anyone find a guinea egg. After months of seeking guinea eggs, an old
lady familiar with guineas advised Alfred that all of Bill's guineas
were cocks. It was true; they were all Shriner guineas. Alfred procured
a few Suffragettes and guineas are now the most prolific fowl production
of the farm.

[Illustration: Home, Sweet Home]




CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

It's curious what fuss folks makes 'bout boys that went away
Years ago from home.
There's young Bill Piper that used to keep recitin',
Do you know what he's done?
He's gone to actin', there's some that actually pay
To go an' hear Bill talkin', public in a play.
Why, he couldn't chop a cord o' hickory wood in a year;
He may fool the folks out yonder, but he ain't no hero here.


I am glad to have Uncle Tom visit us. He is a good man. It is true his
calling made him very narrow when a younger man, but he was always kind
hearted, and under his austerity there's a lot of man. I am doubly glad
he is to visit us. I want him to carry back to my old home, to those who
predicted a much different career for me, a few things I would like them
to know.

[Illustration: Uncle Tom]

"What are you going to do with Polly?" inquired the wife. Polly was a
bird purchased in New Orleans; warranted to be one of the best talkers
ever imported; talks French, English and Spanish. The bird came up to
the guarantee and even surpassed it. She can cuss in two or three
languages not specified in the guarantee. The wife suggested we carry
Polly to sister's. "But Uncle Tom will visit there and it would come out
that the parrot belonged to us. Besides, it would be disreputable to
have Polly's profanity charged to sister's family."

Janet Wolfe, a teacher of languages, was also a guest of the family. She
and the uncle spent a great deal of their leisure talking to Polly.
Janet was particularly interested in Polly's Spanish and French. One
morning the two were standing near Polly's perch. Polly was unusually
talkative. In answer to a sentence of Janet's purest South End French,
Polly rolled off sentence after sentence of New Orleans French Market
French. Janet turned red, then pale. She hurriedly inquired as to
whether Uncle Tom understood French. When assured he did not, she
elevated her hands in thankfulness.

Uncle Tom adhered to the custom of family worship. One morning Uncle
Tom's prayer was very long. Polly, evidently--like others of the
family--was hungry, but, unlike them, did not have the politeness to
conceal it. Stretching her wings to the fullest width, craning her neck,
in a bored tone she squeaked: "O-h h-e-l-l. Give us a rest." There was
no suppressing the laughter. Polly laughed too. Uncle Tom smiled
faintly. Alfred pretended to chastise the bird, raising the feather
duster over her. Polly began a tirade that all the family understood. It
must have sounded to Uncle Tom something like this: "Go to
hell-go-to-hell-all-of-you. Get-to-hell-out-of-yere-dam-you,
dam-you-all. Polly's-sick-poor-Polly. Chippy-get-your-hair-cut-hair-cut.
Oh-hell."

Many were the arguments and interchanges of opinions as between Alfred
and Uncle Tom. The younger man never mentioned the old days at home, he
was more anxious to have the uncle refer to them. Many years had elapsed
and Alfred surmised the uncle had forgotten events that were
ineffaceably impressed upon his own memory. The uncle and nephew, held
many long conversations. One night while alone the uncle took Alfred
aback a bit, when he very abruptly inquired as to whether he was
satisfied with his profession--his life. "I can see you are well fixed
and financial success has come to you. But, are you satisfied with your
life? Would you live the same life over again?"

"Uncle in the main, I am satisfied with my life. There are many things
that I would prefer to forget and there are many things I hope to
remember. As a boy, I was ambitious to become a circus clown." The uncle
smiled. "This at first, was a boy's whim, an illusion. That ambition was
based entirely upon a desire to acquire sufficient money to make me
comfortable. It was a boyish fancy at the beginning but some of the
happiest days of my life were when I wore the motley and endeavored to
spread gladness as a circus clown.

"To see others enjoying themselves, to hear and see folks laugh, is one
of the greatest pleasures to me in this life. But I am sorry I did not
become something other than a showman." The old minister looked at
Alfred in amazement. "I will always retain most pleasant recollections
of the many friends that I have made in the show world, but, Uncle
Thomas, I feel that I could have done something better for myself if I
had only been as bent upon it as I was upon show life."

"Why, Alfred! You surprise me. What do you think you should have gone
into? A mercantile business?"

"No, I never had any taste for that. Of late years I have often wished I
had been enabled to enter the legal profession. I believe I would have
made a success as a lawyer."

"Oh, as a politician?"

"No, no, Uncle, I abhor politics as I know them. I mean a lawyer. One
who was respected by all the people in the community where he practiced.
I have often thought I would like to be a sort of lawyer and farmer. I
never was satisfied with myself until I became the owner of a farm."

"Well, if you are dissatisfied with your business, I cannot understand
why you have been so successful."

"Now, Uncle Tom, you misunderstand me. I am not dissatisfied with my
business. I had ambitions as a boy, I have ambitions as a man."

"Are you ashamed of your calling?" This was a leading question. Alfred
felt the inquisitor was digging pretty deep.

"No, Uncle, I am not. I shall always respect the calling of a public
entertainer. I thank God, and pat myself on the back often, that not one
dollar I possess was wrung from a human being that they were unwilling
to part with. I respect myself all the more that not one penny of the
little that I have saved is tainted, that is in the latter day
application of the term. In my professional work I have carried
gladness. I have endeavored to make two blades of grass grow where one
grew before. I have injured no man by my profession, but have made many
happy. Why should I be ashamed of it? Of course, I often wish that I had
entered a field where I could have enjoyed more opportunities; where I
could have extended myself as it were. I would like to live in a larger
world."

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