The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 4

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This etext was prepared by David Widger, widger@cecomet.net
This etext was prepared by David Widger

The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 4

CONTENTS:

BEING A BOY
ON HORSEBACK

BEING A BOY

One of the best things in the world to be is a boy; it requires no
experience, though it needs some practice to be a good one. The
disadvantage of the position is that it does not last long enough; it
is soon over; just as you get used to being a boy, you have to be
something else, with a good deal more work to do and not half so much
fun. And yet every boy is anxious to be a man, and is very uneasy
with the restrictions that are put upon him as a boy. Good fun as it
is to yoke up the calves and play work, there is not a boy on a farm
but would rather drive a yoke of oxen at real work. What a glorious
feeling it is, indeed, when a boy is for the first time given the
long whip and permitted to drive the oxen, walking by their side,
swinging the long lash, and shouting "Gee, Buck!" " Haw, Golden!"
"Whoa, Bright!" and all the rest of that remarkable language, until
he is red in the face, and all the neighbors for half a mile are
aware that something unusual is going on. If I were a boy, I am not
sure but I would rather drive the oxen than have a birthday.
The proudest day of my life was one day when I rode on the neap of
the cart, and drove the oxen, all alone, with a load of apples to the
cider-mill. I was so little that it was a wonder that I did n't fall
off, and get under the broad wheels. Nothing could make a boy, who
cared anything for his appearance, feel flatter than to be run over
by the broad tire of a cart-wheel. But I never heard of one who was,
and I don't believe one ever will be. As I said, it was a great day
for me, but I don't remember that the oxen cared much about it. They
sagged along in their great clumsy way, switching their tails in my
face occasionally, and now and then giving a lurch to this or that
side of the road, attracted by a choice tuft of grass. And then I
"came the Julius Caesar" over them, if you will allow me to use such
a slang expression, a liberty I never should permit you. I don't
know that Julius Caesar ever drove cattle, though he must often have
seen the peasants from the Campagna "haw" and "gee" them round the
Forum (of course in Latin, a language that those cattle understood as
well as ours do English); but what I mean is, that I stood up and
"hollered" with all my might, as everybody does with oxen, as if they
were born deaf, and whacked them with the long lash over the head,
just as the big folks did when they drove. I think now that it was a
cowardly thing to crack the patient old fellows over the face and
eyes, and make them wink in their meek manner. If I am ever a boy
again on a farm, I shall speak gently to the oxen, and not go
screaming round the farm like a crazy man; and I shall not hit them a
cruel cut with the lash every few minutes, because it looks big to do
so and I cannot think of anything else to do. I never liked lickings
myself, and I don't know why an ox should like them, especially as he
cannot reason about the moral improvement he is to get out of them.

Speaking of Latin reminds me that I once taught my cows Latin. I
don't mean that I taught them to read it, for it is very difficult to
teach a cow to read Latin or any of the dead languages,--a cow cares
more for her cud than she does for all the classics put together.
But if you begin early, you can teach a cow, or a calf (if you can
teach a calf anything, which I doubt), Latin as well as English.
There were ten cows, which I had to escort to and from pasture night
and morning. To these cows I gave the names of the Roman numerals,
beginning with Unus and Duo, and going up to Decem. Decem was, of
course, the biggest cow of the party, or at least she was the ruler
of the others, and had the place of honor in the stable and
everywhere else. I admire cows, and especially the exactness with
which they define their social position. In this case, Decem could
"lick" Novem, and Novem could "lick" Octo, and so on down to Unus,
who could n't lick anybody, except her own calf. I suppose I ought
to have called the weakest cow Una instead of Unus, considering her
sex; but I did n't care much to teach the cows the declensions of
adjectives, in which I was not very well up myself; and, besides, it
would be of little use to a cow. People who devote themselves too
severely to study of the classics are apt to become dried up; and you
should never do anything to dry up a cow. Well, these ten cows knew
their names after a while, at least they appeared to, and would take
their places as I called them. At least, if Octo attempted to get
before Novem in going through the bars (I have heard people speak of
a "pair of bars" when there were six or eight of them), or into the
stable, the matter of precedence was settled then and there, and,
once settled, there was no dispute about it afterwards. Novem either
put her horns into Octo's ribs, and Octo shambled to one side, or
else the two locked horns and tried the game of push and gore until
one gave up. Nothing is stricter than the etiquette of a party of
cows. There is nothing in royal courts equal to it; rank is exactly
settled, and the same individuals always have the precedence. You
know that at Windsor Castle, if the Royal Three-Ply Silver Stick
should happen to get in front of the Most Royal Double-and-Twisted
Golden Rod, when the court is going in to dinner, something so
dreadful would happen that we don't dare to think of it. It is
certain that the soup would get cold while the Golden Rod was
pitching the Silver Stick out of the Castle window into the moat, and
perhaps the island of Great Britain itself would split in two. But
the people are very careful that it never shall happen, so we shall
probably never know what the effect would be. Among cows, as I say,
the question is settled in short order, and in a different manner
from what it sometimes is in other society. It is said that in other
society there is sometimes a great scramble for the first place, for
the leadership, as it is called, and that women, and men too, fight
for what is called position; and in order to be first they will
injure their neighbors by telling stories about them and by
backbiting, which is the meanest kind of biting there is, not
excepting the bite of fleas. But in cow society there is nothing of
this detraction in order to get the first place at the crib, or the
farther stall in the stable. If the question arises, the cows turn
in, horns and all, and settle it with one square fight, and that ends
it. I have often admired this trait in COWS.

Besides Latin, I used to try to teach the cows a little poetry, and
it is a very good plan. It does not do the cows much good, but it is
very good exercise for a boy farmer. I used to commit to memory as
good short poems as I could find (the cows liked to listen to
"Thanatopsis" about as well as anything), and repeat them when I went
to the pasture, and as I drove the cows home through the sweet ferns
and down the rocky slopes. It improves a boy's elocution a great
deal more than driving oxen.

It is a fact, also, that if a boy repeats "Thanatopsis" while he is
milking, that operation acquires a certain dignity.

II

THE BOY AS A FARMER

Boys in general would be very good farmers if the current notions
about farming were not so very different from those they entertain.
What passes for laziness is very often an unwillingness to farm in a
particular way. For instance, some morning in early summer John is
told to catch the sorrel mare, harness her into the spring wagon, and
put in the buffalo and the best whip, for father is obliged to drive
over to the "Corners, to see a man" about some cattle, to talk with
the road commissioner, to go to the store for the "women folks," and
to attend to other important business; and very likely he will not be
back till sundown. It must be very pressing business, for the old
gentleman drives off in this way somewhere almost every pleasant day,
and appears to have a great deal on his mind.

Meantime, he tells John that he can play ball after he has done up
the chores. As if the chores could ever be "done up" on a farm. He
is first to clean out the horse-stable; then to take a bill-hook and
cut down the thistles and weeds from the fence corners in the home
mowing-lot and along the road towards the village; to dig up the
docks round the garden patch; to weed out the beet-bed; to hoe the
early potatoes; to rake the sticks and leaves out of the front yard;
in short, there is work enough laid out for John to keep him busy, it
seems to him, till he comes of age; and at half an hour to sundown he
is to go for the cows "and mind he don't run 'em!"

"Yes, sir," says John," is that all?"

"Well, if you get through in good season, you might pick over those
potatoes in the cellar; they are sprouting; they ain't fit to eat."

John is obliged to his father, for if there is any sort of chore more
cheerful to a boy than another, on a pleasant day, it is rubbing the
sprouts off potatoes in a dark cellar. And the old gentleman mounts
his wagon and drives away down the enticing road, with the dog
bounding along beside the wagon, and refusing to come back at John's
call. John half wishes he were the dog. The dog knows the part of
farming that suits him. He likes to run along the road and see all
the dogs and other people, and he likes best of all to lie on the
store steps at the Corners--while his master's horse is dozing at the
post and his master is talking politics in the store--with the other
dogs of his acquaintance, snapping at mutually annoying flies, and
indulging in that delightful dog gossip which is expressed by a wag
of the tail and a sniff of the nose. Nobody knows how many dogs'
characters are destroyed in this gossip, or how a dog may be able to
insinuate suspicion by a wag of the tail as a man can by a shrug of
the shoulders, or sniff a slander as a man can suggest one by raising
his eyebrows.

John looks after the old gentleman driving off in state, with the
odorous buffalo-robe and the new whip, and he thinks that is the sort
of farming he would like to do. And he cries after his departing
parent,

"Say, father, can't I go over to the farther pasture and salt the
cattle?" John knows that he could spend half a day very pleasantly
in going over to that pasture, looking for bird's nests and shying at
red squirrels on the way, and who knows but he might "see" a sucker
in the meadow brook, and perhaps get a "jab" at him with a sharp
stick. He knows a hole where there is a whopper; and one of his
plans in life is to go some day and snare him, and bring him home in
triumph. It is therefore strongly impressed upon his mind that the
cattle want salting. But his father, without turning his head,
replies,

"No, they don't need salting any more 'n you do!" And the old
equipage goes rattling down the road, and John whistles his
disappointment. When I was a boy on a farm, and I suppose it is so
now, cattle were never salted half enough!

John goes to his chores, and gets through the stable as soon as he
can, for that must be done; but when it comes to the out-door work,
that rather drags. There are so many things to distract the
attention--a chipmunk in the fence, a bird on a near-tree, and a hen-
hawk circling high in the air over the barnyard. John loses a little
time in stoning the chipmunk, which rather likes the sport, and in
watching the bird, to find where its nest is; and he convinces
himself that he ought to watch the hawk, lest it pounce upon the
chickens, and therefore, with an easy conscience, he spends fifteen
minutes in hallooing to that distant bird, and follows it away out of
sight over the woods, and then wishes it would come back again. And
then a carriage with two horses, and a trunk on behind, goes along
the road; and there is a girl in the carriage who looks out at John,
who is suddenly aware that his trousers are patched on each knee and
in two places behind; and he wonders if she is rich, and whose name
is on the trunk, and how much the horses cost, and whether that nice-
looking man is the girl's father, and if that boy on the seat with
the driver is her brother, and if he has to do chores; and as the gay
sight disappears, John falls to thinking about the great world beyond
the farm, of cities, and people who are always dressed up, and a
great many other things of which he has a very dim notion. And then
a boy, whom John knows, rides by in a wagon with his father, and the
boy makes a face at John, and John returns the greeting with a twist
of his own visage and some symbolic gestures. All these things take
time. The work of cutting down the big weeds gets on slowly,
although it is not very disagreeable, or would not be if it were
play. John imagines that yonder big thistle is some whiskered
villain, of whom he has read in a fairy book, and he advances on him
with "Die, ruffian!" and slashes off his head with the bill-hook; or
he charges upon the rows of mullein-stalks as if they were rebels in
regimental ranks, and hews them down without mercy. What fun it
might be if there were only another boy there to help. But even war,
single handed, gets to be tiresome. It is dinner-time before John
finishes the weeds, and it is cow-time before John has made much
impression on the garden.

This garden John has no fondness for. He would rather hoe corn all
day than work in it. Father seems to think that it is easy work that
John can do, because it is near the house! John's continual plan in
this life is to go fishing. When there comes a rainy day, he
attempts to carry it out. But ten chances to one his father has
different views. As it rains so that work cannot be done out-doors,
it is a good time to work in the garden. He can run into the house
between the heavy showers. John accordingly detests the garden; and
the only time he works briskly in it is when he has a stent set, to
do so much weeding before the Fourth of July. If he is spry, he can
make an extra holiday the Fourth and the day after. Two days of
gunpowder and ball-playing! When I was a boy, I supposed there was
some connection between such and such an amount of work done on the
farm and our national freedom. I doubted if there could be any
Fourth of July if my stent was not done. I, at least, worked for my
Independence.

III

THE DELIGHTS OF FARMING

There are so many bright spots in the life of a farm-boy, that I
sometimes think I should like to live the life over again; I should
almost be willing to be a girl if it were not for the chores. There
is a great comfort to a boy in the amount of work he can get rid of
doing. It is sometimes astonishing how slow he can go on an errand,
--he who leads the school in a race. The world is new and
interesting to him, and there is so much to take his attention off,
when he is sent to do anything. Perhaps he himself couldn't explain
why, when he is sent to the neighbor's after yeast, he stops to stone
the frogs; he is not exactly cruel, but be wants to see if he can hit
'em. No other living thing can go so slow as a boy sent on an
errand. His legs seem to be lead, unless he happens to espy a
woodchuck in an adjoining lot, when he gives chase to it like a deer;
and it is a curious fact about boys, that two will be a great deal
slower in doing anything than one, and that the more you have to help
on a piece of work the less is accomplished. Boys have a great power
of helping each other to do nothing; and they are so innocent about
it, and unconscious. "I went as quick as ever I could," says the
boy: his father asks him why he did n't stay all night, when he has
been absent three hours on a ten-minute errand. The sarcasm has no
effect on the boy.

Going after the cows was a serious thing in my day. I had to climb a
hill, which was covered with wild strawberries in the season. Could
any boy pass by those ripe berries? And then in the fragrant hill
pasture there were beds of wintergreen with red berries, tufts of
columbine, roots of sassafras to be dug, and dozens of things good to
eat or to smell, that I could not resist. It sometimes even lay in
my way to climb a tree to look for a crow's nest, or to swing in the
top, and to try if I could see the steeple of the village church. It
became very important sometimes for me to see that steeple; and in
the midst of my investigations the tin horn would blow a great blast
from the farmhouse, which would send a cold chill down my back in the
hottest days. I knew what it meant. It had a frightfully impatient
quaver in it, not at all like the sweet note that called us to dinner
from the hay-field. It said, "Why on earth does n't that boy come
home? It is almost dark, and the cows ain't milked!" And that was
the time the cows had to start into a brisk pace and make up for lost
time. I wonder if any boy ever drove the cows home late, who did not
say that the cows were at the very farther end of the pasture, and
that "Old Brindle" was hidden in the woods, and he couldn't find her
for ever so long! The brindle cow is the boy's scapegoat, many a
time.

No other boy knows how to appreciate a holiday as the farm-boy does;
and his best ones are of a peculiar kind. Going fishing is of course
one sort. The excitement of rigging up the tackle, digging the bait,
and the anticipation of great luck! These are pure pleasures,
enjoyed because they are rare. Boys who can go a-fishing any time
care but little for it. Tramping all day through bush and brier,
fighting flies and mosquitoes, and branches that tangle the line, and
snags that break the hook, and returning home late and hungry, with
wet feet and a string of speckled trout on a willow twig, and having
the family crowd out at the kitchen door to look at 'em, and say,
"Pretty well done for you, bub; did you catch that big one yourself?"
--this is also pure happiness, the like of which the boy will never
have again, not if he comes to be selectman and deacon and to "keep
store."

But the holidays I recall with delight were the two days in spring
and fall, when we went to the distant pasture-land, in a neighboring
town, maybe, to drive thither the young cattle and colts, and to
bring them back again. It was a wild and rocky upland where our
great pasture was, many miles from home, the road to it running by a
brawling river, and up a dashing brook-side among great hills. What
a day's adventure it was! It was like a journey to Europe. The
night before, I could scarcely sleep for thinking of it! and there
was no trouble about getting me up at sunrise that morning. The
breakfast was eaten, the luncheon was packed in a large basket, with
bottles of root beer and a jug of switchel, which packing I
superintended with the greatest interest; and then the cattle were to
be collected for the march, and the horses hitched up. Did I shirk
any duty? Was I slow? I think not. I was willing to run my legs
off after the frisky steers, who seemed to have an idea they were
going on a lark, and frolicked about, dashing into all gates, and
through all bars except the right ones; and how cheerfully I did yell
at them.

It was a glorious chance to "holler," and I have never since heard
any public speaker on the stump or at camp-meeting who could make
more noise. I have often thought it fortunate that the amount of
noise in a boy does not increase in proportion to his size; if it
did, the world could not contain it.

The whole day was full of excitement and of freedom. We were away
from the farm, which to a boy is one of the best parts of farming; we
saw other farms and other people at work; I had the pleasure of
marching along, and swinging my whip, past boys whom I knew, who were
picking up stones. Every turn of the road, every bend and rapid of
the river, the great bowlders by the wayside, the watering-troughs,
the giant pine that had been struck by lightning, the mysterious
covered bridge over the river where it was, most swift and rocky and
foamy, the chance eagle in the blue sky, the sense of going
somewhere,--why, as I recall all these things I feel that even the
Prince Imperial, as he used to dash on horseback through the Bois de
Boulogne, with fifty mounted hussars clattering at his heels, and
crowds of people cheering, could not have been as happy as was I, a
boy in short jacket and shorter pantaloons, trudging in the dust that
day behind the steers and colts, cracking my black-stock whip.

I wish the journey would never end; but at last, by noon, we reach
the pastures and turn in the herd; and after making the tour of the
lots to make sure there are no breaks in the fences, we take our
luncheon from the wagon and eat it under the trees by the spring.
This is the supreme moment of the day. This is the way to live; this
is like the Swiss Family Robinson, and all the rest of my delightful
acquaintances in romance. Baked beans, rye-and-indian bread (moist,
remember), doughnuts and cheese, pie, and root beer. What richness!
You may live to dine at Delmonico's, or, if those Frenchmen do not
eat each other up, at Philippe's, in Rue Montorgueil in Paris, where
the dear old Thackeray used to eat as good a dinner as anybody; but
you will get there neither doughnuts, nor pie, nor root beer, nor
anything so good as that luncheon at noon in the old pasture, high
among the Massachusetts hills! Nor will you ever, if you live to be
the oldest boy in the world, have any holiday equal to the one I have
described. But I always regretted that I did not take along a
fishline, just to "throw in" the brook we passed. I know there were
trout there.

IV

NO FARMING WITHOUT A BOY

Say what you will about the general usefulness of boys, it is my
impression that a farm without a boy would very soon come to grief.
What the boy does is the life of the farm. He is the factotum,
always in demand, always expected to do the thousand indispensable
things that nobody else will do. Upon him fall all the odds and
ends, the most difficult things. After everybody else is through, he
has to finish up. His work is like a woman's,--perpetual waiting on
others. Everybody knows how much easier it is to eat a good dinner
than it is to wash the dishes afterwards. Consider what a boy on a
farm is required to do; things that must be done, or life would
actually stop.

It is understood, in the first place, that he is to do all the
errands, to go to the store, to the post office, and to carry all
sorts of messages. If he had as many legs as a centipede, they would
tire before night. His two short limbs seem to him entirely
inadequate to the task. He would like to have as many legs as a
wheel has spokes, and rotate about in the same way. This he
sometimes tries to do; and people who have seen him "turning cart-
wheels" along the side of the road have supposed that he was amusing
himself, and idling his time; he was only trying to invent a new mode
of locomotion, so that he could economize his legs and do his errands
with greater dispatch. He practices standing on his head, in order
to accustom himself to any position. Leapfrog is one of his methods
of getting over the ground quickly. He would willingly go an errand
any distance if he could leap-frog it with a few other boys. He has
a natural genius for combining pleasure with business. This is the
reason why, when he is sent to the spring for a pitcher of water, and
the family are waiting at the dinner-table, he is absent so long; for
he stops to poke the frog that sits on the stone, or, if there is a
penstock, to put his hand over the spout and squirt the water a
little while. He is the one who spreads the grass when the men have
cut it; he mows it away in the barn; he rides the horse to cultivate
the corn, up and down the hot, weary rows; he picks up the potatoes
when they are dug; he drives the cows night and morning; he brings
wood and water and splits kindling; he gets up the horse and puts out
the horse; whether he is in the house or out of it, there is always
something for him to do. Just before school in winter he shovels
paths; in summer he turns the grindstone. He knows where there are
lots of winter-greens and sweet flag-root, but instead of going for
them, he is to stay in-doors and pare apples and stone raisins and
pound something in a mortar. And yet, with his mind full of schemes
of what he would like to do, and his hands full of occupations, he is
an idle boy who has nothing to busy himself with but school and
chores! He would gladly do all the work if somebody else would do
the chores, he thinks, and yet I doubt if any boy ever amounted to
anything in the world, or was of much use as a man, who did not enjoy
the advantages of a liberal education in the way of chores.

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