chapter 1

, entire). The Substitute (Le Remplaçant) François Coppée (In _Modern Short-stories_ edited by M. Ashmun.)

THE COURSE OF AMERICAN HISTORY

WOODROW WILSON

(In _Mere Literature_)

Our national history has been written for the most part by New England men. All honor to them! Their scholarship and their characters alike have given them an honorable enrollment amongst the great names of our literary history; and no just man would say aught to detract, were it never so little, from their well-earned fame. They have written our history, nevertheless, from but a single point of view. From where they sit, the whole of the great development looks like an Expansion of New England. Other elements but play along the sides of the great process by which the Puritan has worked out the development of nation and polity. It is he who has gone out and possessed the land: the man of destiny, the type and impersonation of a chosen people. To the Southern writer, too, the story looks much the same, if it be but followed to its culmination,--to its final storm and stress and tragedy in the great war. It is the history of the Suppression of the South. Spite of all her splendid contributions to the steadfast accomplishment of the great task of building the nation; spite of the long leadership of her statesmen in the national counsels; spite of her joint achievements in the conquest and occupation of the West, the South was at last turned upon on every hand, rebuked, proscribed, defeated. The history of the United States, we have learned, was, from the settlement at Jamestown to the surrender at Appomattox, a long-drawn contest for mastery between New England and the South,--and the end of the contest we know. All along the parallels of latitude ran the rivalry, in those heroical days of toil and adventure during which population crossed the continent, like an army advancing its encampments, Up and down the great river of the continent, too, and beyond, up the slow incline of the vast steppes that lift themselves toward the crowning towers of the Rockies,--beyond that, again, in the gold-fields and upon the green plains of California, the race for ascendency struggled on,--till at length there was a final coming face to face, and the masterful folk who had come from the loins of New England won their consummate victory.

It is a very dramatic form for the story. One almost wishes it were true. How fine a unity it would give our epic! But perhaps, after all, the real truth is more interesting. The life of the nation cannot be reduced to these so simple terms. These two great forces, of the North and of the South, unquestionably existed,--were unquestionably projected in their operation out upon the great plane of the continent, there to combine or repel, as circumstances might determine. But the people that went out from the North were not an unmixed people; they came from the great Middle States as well as from New England. Their transplantation into the West was no more a reproduction of New England or New York or Pennsylvania or New Jersey than Massachusetts was a reproduction of old England, or New Netherland a reproduction of Holland. The Southern people, too, whom they met by the western rivers and upon the open prairies, were transformed, as they themselves were, by the rough fortunes of the frontier. A mixture of peoples, a modification of mind and habit, a new round of experiment and adjustment amidst the novel life of the baked and untilled plain, and the far valleys with the virgin forests still thick upon them: a new temper, a new spirit of adventure, a new impatience of restraint, a new license of life,--these are the characteristic notes and measures of the time when the nation spread itself at large upon the continent, and was transformed from a group of colonies into a family of States.

The passes of these eastern mountains were the arteries of the nation's life. The real breath of our growth and manhood came into our nostrils when first, like Governor Spotswood and that gallant company of Virginian gentlemen that rode with him in the far year 1716, the Knights of the Order of the Golden Horseshoe, our pioneers stood upon the ridges of the eastern hills and looked down upon those reaches of the continent where lay the untrodden paths of the westward migration. There, upon the courses of the distant rivers that gleamed before them in the sun, down the farther slopes of the hills beyond, out upon the broad fields that lay upon the fertile banks of the "Father of Waters," up the long tilt of the continent to the vast hills that looked out upon the Pacific--there were the regions in which, joining with people from every race and clime under the sun, they were to make the great compounded nation whose liberty and mighty works of peace were to cause all the world to stand at gaze. Thither were to come Frenchmen, Scandinavians, Celts, Dutch, Slavs,--men of the Latin races and of the races of the Orient, as well as men, a great host, of the first stock of the settlements: English, Scots, Scots-Irish,--like New England men, but touched with the salt of humor, hard, and yet neighborly too. For this great process of growth by grafting, of modification no less than of expansion, the colonies,--the original thirteen States,--were only preliminary studies and first experiments. But the experiments that most resembled the great methods by which we peopled the continent from side to side and knit a single polity across all its length and breadth, were surely the experiments made from the very first in the Middle States of our Atlantic seaboard.

Here from the first were mixture of population, variety of element, combination of type, as if of the nation itself in small. Here was never a simple body, a people of but a single blood and extraction, a polity and a practice brought straight from one motherland. The life of these States was from the beginning like the life of the country: they have always shown the national pattern. In New England and the South it was very different. There some of the great elements of the national life were long in preparation: but separately and with an individual distinction; without mixture,--for long almost without movement. That the elements thus separately prepared were of the greatest importance, and run everywhere like chief threads of the pattern through all our subsequent life, who can doubt? They give color and tone to every part of the figure. The very fact that they are so distinct and separately evident throughout, the very emphasis of individuality they carry with them, but proves their distinct origin. The other elements of our life, various though they be, and of the very fibre, giving toughness and consistency to the fabric, are merged in its texture, united, confused, almost indistinguishable, so thoroughly are they mixed, intertwined, interwoven, like the essential strands of the stuff itself: but these of the Puritan and the Southerner, though they run everywhere with the rest and seem upon a superficial view themselves the body of the cloth, in fact modify rather than make it.

What in fact has been the course of American history? How is it to be distinguished from European history? What features has it of its own, which give it its distinctive plan and movement? We have suffered, it is to be feared, a very serious limitation of view until recent years by having all our history written in the East. It has smacked strongly of a local flavor. It has concerned itself too exclusively with the origins and Old-World derivations of our story. Our historians have made their march from the sea with their heads over shoulder, their gaze always backward upon the landing-places and homes of the first settlers. In spite of the steady immigration, with its persistent tide of foreign blood, they have chosen to speak often and to think always of our people as sprung after all from a common stock, bearing a family likeness in every branch, and following all the while old, familiar, family ways. The view is the more misleading because it is so large a part of the truth without being all of it. The common British stock did first make the country, and has always set the pace. There were common institutions up and down the coast; and these had formed and hardened for a persistent growth before the great westward migration began which was to re-shape and modify every element of our life. The national government itself was set up and made strong by success while yet we lingered for the most part upon the eastern coast and feared a too distant frontier.

But, the beginnings once safely made, change set in apace. Not only so: there had been slow change from the first. We have no frontier now, we are told,--except a broken fragment, it may be, here and there in some barren corner of the western lands, where some inhospitable mountain still shoulders us out, or where men are still lacking to break the baked surface of the plains and occupy them in the very teeth of hostile nature. But at first it was all frontier,--a mere strip of settlements stretched precariously upon the sea-edge of the wilds: an untouched continent in front of them, and behind them an unfrequented sea that almost never showed so much as the momentary gleam of a sail. Every step in the slow process of settlement was but a step of the same kind as the first, an advance to a new frontier like the old. For long we lacked, it is true, that new breed of frontiersmen born in after years beyond the mountains. Those first frontiersmen had still a touch of the timidity of the Old World in their blood: they lacked the frontier heart. They were "Pilgrims" in very fact,--exiled, not at home. Fine courage they had: and a steadfastness in their bold design which it does a faint-hearted age good to look back upon. There was no thought of drawing back. Steadily, almost calmly, they extended their seats. They built homes, and deemed it certain their children would live there after them. But they did not love the rough, uneasy life for its own sake. How long did they keep, if they could, within sight of the sea! The wilderness was their refuge; but how long before it became their joy and hope! Here was their destiny cast; but their hearts lingered and held back. It was only as generations passed and the work widened about them that their thought also changed, and a new thrill sped along their blood. Their life had been new and strange from their first landing in the wilderness. Their houses, their food, their clothing, their neighborhood dealings were all such as only the frontier brings. Insensibly they were themselves changed. The strange life became familiar; their adjustment to it was at length unconscious and without effort; they had no plans which were not inseparably a part and a product of it. But, until they had turned their backs once for all upon the sea; until they saw their western borders cleared of the French; until the mountain passes had grown familiar, and the lands beyond the central and constant theme of their hope, the goal and dream of their young men, they did not become an American people.

When they did, the great determining movement of our history began. The very visages of the people changed. That alert movement of the eye, that openness to every thought of enterprise or adventure, that nomadic habit which knows no fixed home and has plans ready to be carried any whither,--all the marks of the authentic type of the "American" as we know him came into our life. The crack of the whip and the song of the teamster, the heaving chorus of boatmen poling their heavy rafts upon the rivers, the laughter of the camp, the sound of bodies of men in the still forests, became the characteristic notes in our air. A roughened race, embrowned in the sun, hardened in manner by a coarse life of change and danger, loving the rude woods and the crack of the rifle, living to begin something new every day, striking with the broad and open hand, delicate in nothing but the touch of the trigger, leaving cities in its track as if by accident rather than design, settling again to the steady ways of a fixed life only when it must: such was the American people whose achievement it was to be to take possession of their continent from end to end ere their national government was a single century old. The picture is a very singular one! Settled life and wild side by side: civilization frayed at the edges,--taken forward in rough and ready fashion, with a song and a swagger,--not by statesmen, but by woodsmen and drovers, with axes and whips and rifles in their hands, clad in buckskin, like huntsmen.

It has been said that we have here repeated some of the first processes of history; that the life and methods of our frontiersmen take us back to the fortunes and hopes of the men who crossed Europe when her forests, too, were still thick upon her. But the difference is really very fundamental, and much more worthy of remark than the likeness. Those shadowy masses of men whom we see moving upon the face of the earth in the far-away, questionable days when states were forming: even those stalwart figures we see so well as they emerge from the deep forests of Germany, to displace the Roman in all his western provinces and set up the states we know and marvel upon at this day, show us men working their new work at their own level. They do not turn back a long cycle of years from the old and settled states, the ordered cities, the tilled fields, and the elaborated governments of an ancient civilization, to begin as it were once more at the beginning. They carry alike their homes and their states with them in the camp and upon the ordered march of the host. They are men of the forest, or else men hardened always to take the sea in open boats. They live no more roughly in the new lands than in the old. The world has been frontier for them from the first. They may go forward with their life in these new seats from where they left off in the old. How different the circumstances of our first settlement and the building of new states on this side the sea! Englishmen, bred in law and ordered government ever since the Norman lawyers were followed a long five hundred years ago across the narrow seas by those masterful administrators of the strong Plantagenet race, leave an ancient realm and come into a wilderness where states have never been; leave a land of art and letters, which saw but yesterday "the spacious times of great Elizabeth," where Shakespeare still lives in the gracious leisure of his closing days at Stratford, where cities teem with trade and men go bravely dight in cloth of gold, and turn back six centuries,--nay, a thousand years and more,--to the first work of building states in a wilderness! They bring the steadied habits and sobered thoughts of an ancient realm into the wild air of an untouched continent. The weary stretches of a vast sea lie, like a full thousand years of time, between them and the life in which till now all their thought was bred. Here they stand, as it were, with all their tools left behind, centuries struck out of their reckoning, driven back upon the long dormant instincts and forgotten craft of their race, not used this long age. Look how singular a thing: the work of a primitive race, the thought of a civilized! Hence the strange, almost grotesque groupings of thought and affairs in that first day of our history. Subtle politicians speak the phrases and practice the arts of intricate diplomacy from council chambers placed within log huts within a clearing. Men in ruffs and lace and polished shoe-buckles thread the lonely glades of primeval forests. The microscopical distinctions of the schools, the thin notes of a metaphysical theology are woven in and out through the labyrinths of grave sermons that run hours long upon the still air of the wilderness. Belief in dim refinements of dogma is made the test for man or woman who seeks admission to a company of pioneers. When went there by an age since the great flood when so singular a thing was seen as this: thousands of civilized men suddenly rusticated and bade do the work of primitive peoples,--Europe _frontiered_!

Of course there was a deep change wrought, if not in these men, at any rate in their children; and every generation saw the change deepen. It must seem to every thoughtful man a notable thing how, while the change was wrought, the simples of things complex were revealed in the clear air of the New World: how all accidentals seemed to fall away from the structure of government, and the simple first principles were laid bare that abide always; how social distinctions were stripped off, shown to be the mere cloaks and masks they were, and every man brought once again to a clear realization of his actual relations to his fellows! It was as if trained and sophisticated men had been rid of a sudden of their sophistication and of all the theory of their life, and left with nothing but their discipline of faculty, a schooled and sobered instinct. And the fact that we kept always, for close upon three hundred years, a like element in our life, a frontier people always in our van, is, so far, the central and determining fact of our national history. "East" and "West," an ever-changing line, but an unvarying experience and a constant leaven of change working always within the body of our folk. Our political, our economic, our social life has felt this potent influence from the wild border all our history through. The "West" is the great word of our history. The "Westerner" has been the type and master of our American life. Now at length, as I have said, we have lost our frontier; our front lies almost unbroken along all the great coast line of the western sea. The Westerner, in some day soon to come, will pass out of our life, as he so long ago passed out of the life of the Old World. Then a new epoch will open for us. Perhaps it has opened already. Slowly we shall grow old, compact our people, study the delicate adjustments of an intricate society, and ponder the niceties, as we have hitherto pondered the bulks and structural framework, of government. Have we not, indeed, already come to these things? But the past we know. We can "see it steady and see it whole"; and its central movement and motive are gross and obvious to the eye.

Till the first century of the Constitution is rounded out we stand all the while in the presence of that stupendous westward movement which has filled the continent: so vast, so various, at times so tragical, so swept by passion. Through all the long time there has been a line of rude settlements along our front wherein the same tests of power and of institutions were still being made that were made first upon the sloping banks of the rivers of old Virginia and within the long sweep of the Bay of Massachusetts. The new life of the West has reacted all the while--who shall say how powerfully?--upon the older life of the East; and yet the East has moulded the West as if she sent forward to it through every decade of the long process the chosen impulses and suggestions of history. The West has taken strength, thought, training, selected aptitudes out of the old treasures of the East,--as if out of a new Orient; while the East has itself been kept fresh, vital, alert, originative by the West, her blood quickened all the while, her youth through every age renewed. Who can say in a word, in a sentence, in a volume, what destinies have been variously wrought, with what new examples of growth and energy, while, upon this unexampled scale, community has passed beyond community across the vast reaches of this great continent!

NOTES

=Jamestown=:--A town in Virginia, the site of the first English settlement in America (1607).

=Appomattox=:--In 1865 Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.

=epic=:--A long narrative poem recounting in a stirring way some great series of events.

=Governor Spotswood=:--Governor of Virginia in the early part of the eighteenth century.

=Knights of the Golden Horseshoe=:--In 1716 an exploring expedition under Governor Spotswood made a journey across the Blue Ridge. The Governor gave each member of the party a gold horseshoe, as a souvenir.

=Celts=:--One of the early Aryan races of southwestern Europe; the Welsh and the Highland Scotch are descended from the Celts.

=Slavs=:--The race of people inhabiting Russia, Poland, Bohemia, and Servia.

=Latin races=:--The French, Spanish, and Italian people, whose languages are derived chiefly from the Latin.

=Orient=:--The far East--India, China, Japan, etc.

=Norman=:--The Norman-French from northern France had been in possession of England for the greater part of a century (1066-1154) when Henry, son of a Saxon princess and a French duke (Geoffrey of Anjou) came to England as Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet line of English kings.

=Stratford=:--A small town on the Avon River in England; the birthplace of Shakespeare.

=dight=:--Clothed. (What does an unabridged dictionary say about this word? Is it commonly used nowadays? Was it used in Shakespeare's time? Why does the author use it here?)

=see it steady and see it whole=:--A quotation from the works of Matthew Arnold, an English poet and critic.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

What has been the disadvantage of having our history written by New England men? Do you know what particular New England men have written of American history? What state is President Wilson from? What is meant by the "Suppression of the South"? Why does the author put in the phrase "we have learned"? Does he believe what he is saying? Show where he makes his own view clear. What "story" is it that one "almost wishes" were true? _Went out from the North_: Where? How are the Northerners and the Southerners changed after they have gone West? What "new temper" do they have? How do they show their "impatience of restraint"? What eastern mountains are meant here? How did our nation gain new life when the pioneers looked westward from the eastern ridges? Why are we spoken of as a "great compounded nation"? What are our "mighty works of peace"? The author now shows how the Middle Seaboard States were a type of the later form of the nation, because they had a mixed population. What does he think about the influence of the Puritan and the Southerner? Note the questions that he asks regarding the course of American history. See how he answers them in the pages that follow. Why does he say that the first frontiersmen were "timid"? When, according to the author, did the "great determining movement" of our history begin? Why does he call the picture that he draws a "singular" one? What is meant by "civilization frayed at the edges"? How do the primitive conditions of our nation differ from the earliest beginnings of the European nations? (See the long passage beginning "How different.") What is meant by "Europe frontiered"? Look carefully on page 261, to see what the author says is "the central and determining fact of our national history." What is the "great word" of our history? Has the author answered the questions he set for himself on page 256? What is happening to us as a nation now that we have lost our frontier? What is the relation between the East and the West? Perhaps you will like to go on and read some more of this essay, from which we have here only a selection. Do you like what the author has said? What do you think of the way in which he has said it?

THEME SUBJECTS

Life in the Wilderness The Log Cabin La Salle My Friend from the West My Friend from the East Crossing the Mountains Early Days in our State An Encounter with the Indians The Coming of the Railroad Daniel Boone A Home on the Prairies Cutting down the Forest The Homesteader A Frontier Town Life on a Western Ranch The Old Settler Some Stories of the Early Days Moving West Lewis and Clark The Pioneer The Old Settlers' Picnic "Home-coming Day" in our Town An Explorer My Trip through the West (or the East) The President

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

=La Salle=:--Look up, in Parkman's _La Salle_ or elsewhere, the facts of La Salle's life. Make very brief mention of his life in France. Contrast it with his experiences in America. What were his reasons for becoming an explorer? Give an account of one of his expeditions: his plans; his preparations; his companions; his hardships; his struggles to establish a fort; his return to Canada for help; his failure or success. Perhaps you will want to write of his last expedition, and its unfortunate ending. Speak of his character as a man and an explorer. Show briefly the results of his endeavors.

=Daniel Boone=:--Look up the adventures of Daniel Boone, and tell some of them in a lively way. Perhaps you can imagine his telling them in his own words to a settler or a companion. In that case, try to put in the questions and the comments of the other person. This will make a kind of dramatic conversation.

=Early Days in our State=:--With a few changes, you can use the outline given on page 249 for "Early Days in our County."

=An Encounter with the Indians=:--Tell a story that you have heard or imagined, about some one's escape from the Indians. How did the hero happen to get into such a perilous situation? Briefly describe his surroundings. Tell of his first knowledge that the Indians were about to attack him. What did he do? How did he feel? Describe the Indians. Tell what efforts the hero made to get away or to protect himself. Make the account of his action brief and lively. Try to keep him before the reader all the time. Now and then explain what was going on in his mind. This is often a good way to secure suspense. Tell very clearly how the hero succeeded in escaping, and what his difficulties were in getting away from the spot. Condense the account of what took place after his actual escape. Where did he take refuge? Was he much the worse for his adventure?

COLLATERAL READINGS

The Course of American History (in _Mere Literature_) Woodrow Wilson The Life of George Washington " " The Winning of the West Theodore Roosevelt Stories of the Great West " " Hero Tales from American History Roosevelt and Lodge The Great Salt Lake Trail Inman and Cody The Old Santa Fé Trail H. Inman Rocky Mountain Exploration Reuben G. Thwaites Daniel Boone " " " How George Rogers Clark Won the Northwest " " " Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road H.A. Bruce The Crossing Winston Churchill The Conquest of Arid America W.E. Smythe The Last American Frontier F.L. Paxon Northwestern Fights and Fighters Cyrus Townsend Brady Western Frontier Stories The Century Company The Story of Tonty Mary Hartwell Catherwood Heroes of the Middle West " " " Pony Tracks Frederic Remington The Different West A.E. Bostwick The Expedition of Lewis and Clark J.K. Hosmer The Trail of Lewis and Clark O.D. Wheeler The Discovery of the Old Northwest James Baldwin Boots and Saddles Elizabeth Custer La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West Francis Parkman The Oregon Trail " " Samuel Houston Henry Bruce The Story of the Railroad Cy Warman The Pioneers Walt Whitman The Story of the Cowboy Emerson Hough Woodrow Wilson W.B. Hale Recollections of Thirteen Presidents John S. Wise Presidential Problems Grover Cleveland The Story of the White House Esther Singleton

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

(From _My Summer in a Garden_)

NINTH WEEK

I am more and more impressed with the moral qualities of vegetables, and contemplate forming a science which shall rank with comparative anatomy and comparative philology,--the science of comparative vegetable morality. We live in an age of protoplasm. And, if life-matter is essentially the same in all forms of life, I purpose to begin early, and ascertain the nature of the plants for which I am responsible. I will not associate with any vegetable which is disreputable, or has not some quality that can contribute to my moral growth. I do not care to be seen much with the squashes or the dead-beets....

This matter of vegetable rank has not been at all studied as it should be. Why do we respect some vegetables, and despise others, when all of them come to an equal honor or ignominy on the table? The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans into poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. There is no dignity in the bean. Corn, which in my garden grows alongside the bean, and, so far as I can see, with no affectation of superiority, is, however, the child of song. It waves in all literature. But mix it with beans, and its high tone is gone. Succotash is vulgar. It is the bean in it. The bean is a vulgar vegetable, without culture, or any flavor of high society among vegetables. Then there is the cool cucumber, like so many people,--good for nothing when it is ripe and the wildness has gone out of it. How inferior in quality it is to the melon, which grows upon a similar vine, is of a like watery consistency, but is not half so valuable! The cucumber is a sort of low comedian in a company where the melon is a minor gentleman. I might also contrast the celery with the potato. The associations are as opposite as the dining-room of the duchess and the cabin of the peasant. I admire the potato, both in vine and blossom; but it is not aristocratic. I began digging my potatoes, by the way, about the 4th of July; and I fancy I have discovered the right way to do it. I treat the potato just as I would a cow. I do not pull them up, and shake them out, and destroy them; but I dig carefully at the side of the hill, remove the fruit which is grown, leaving the vine undisturbed: and my theory is that it will go on bearing, and submitting to my exactions, until the frost cuts it down. It is a game that one would not undertake with a vegetable of tone.

The lettuce is to me a most interesting study. Lettuce is like conversation: it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it. Lettuce, like most talkers, is, however, apt to run rapidly to seed. Blessed is that sort which comes to a head, and so remains, like a few people I know; growing more solid and satisfactory and tender at the same time, and whiter at the centre, and crisp in their maturity. Lettuce, like conversation, requires a good deal of oil, to avoid friction, and keep the company smooth; a pinch of attic salt; a dash of pepper; a quantity of mustard and vinegar, by all means, but so mixed that you will notice no sharp contrasts; and a trifle of sugar. You can put anything, and the more things the better, into salad, as into a conversation; but everything depends upon the skill of mixing. I feel that I am in the best society when I am with lettuce. It is in the select circle of vegetables. The tomato appears well on the table; but you do not want to ask its origin. It is a most agreeable _parvenu_. Of course, I have said nothing about the berries. They live in another and more ideal region: except, perhaps, the currant. Here we see that, even among berries, there are degrees of breeding. The currant is well enough, clear as truth, and exquisite in color; but I ask you to notice how far it is from the exclusive _hauteur_ of the aristocratic strawberry, and the native refinement of the quietly elegant raspberry.

I do not know that chemistry, searching for protoplasm, is able to discover the tendency of vegetables. It can only be found out by outward observation. I confess that I am suspicious of the bean, for instance. There are signs in it of an unregulated life. I put up the most attractive sort of poles for my Limas. They stand high and straight, like church-spires, in my theological garden,--lifted up; and some of them have even budded, like Aaron's rod. No church-steeple in a New England village was ever better fitted to draw to it the rising generation on Sunday than those poles to lift up my beans towards heaven. Some of them did run up the sticks seven feet, and then straggled off into the air in a wanton manner; but more than half of them went galivanting off to the neighboring grape-trellis, and wound their tendrils with the tendrils of the grape, with a disregard of the proprieties of life which is a satire upon human nature. And the grape is morally no better. I think the ancients, who were not troubled with the recondite mystery of protoplasm, were right in the mythic union of Bacchus and Venus.

Talk about the Darwinian theory of development and the principle of natural selection! I should like to see a garden let to run in accordance with it. If I had left my vegetables and weeds to a free fight, in which the strongest specimens only should come to maturity, and the weaker go to the wall, I can clearly see that I should have had a pretty mess of it. It would have been a scene of passion and license and brutality. The "pusley" would have strangled the strawberry; the upright corn, which has now ears to hear the guilty beating of the hearts of the children who steal the raspberries, would have been dragged to the earth by the wandering bean; the snake-grass would have left the place for the potatoes under ground; and the tomatoes would have been swamped by the lusty weeds. With a firm hand, I have had to make my own "natural selection." Nothing will so well bear watching as a garden except a family of children next door. Their power of selection beats mine. If they could read half as well as they can steal a while away, I should put up a notice, "_Children, beware! There is Protoplasm here._" But I suppose it would have no effect. I believe they would eat protoplasm as quick as anything else, ripe or green. I wonder if this is going to be a cholera-year. Considerable cholera is the only thing that would let my apples and pears ripen. Of course I do not care for the fruit; but I do not want to take the responsibility of letting so much "life-matter," full of crude and even wicked vegetable-human tendencies, pass into the composition of the neighbors' children, some of whom may be as immortal as snake-grass.

There ought to be a public meeting about this, and resolutions, and perhaps a clambake. At least, it ought to be put into the catechism, and put in strong.

TENTH WEEK

I THINK I have discovered the way to keep peas from the birds. I tried the scarecrow plan, in a way which I thought would outwit the shrewdest bird. The brain of the bird is not large; but it is all concentrated on one object, and that is the attempt to elude the devices of modern civilization which injure his chances of food. I knew that, if I put up a complete stuffed man, the bird would detect the imitation at once; the perfection of the thing would show him that it was a trick. People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception. I therefore hung some loose garments, of a bright color, upon a rake-head, and set them up among the vines. The supposition was, that the bird would think there was an effort to trap him, that there was a man behind, holding up these garments, and would sing, as he kept at a distance, "You can't catch me with any such double device." The bird would know, or think he knew, that I would not hang up such a scare, in the expectation that it would pass for a man, and deceive a bird; and he would therefore look for a deeper plot. I expected to outwit the bird by a duplicity that was simplicity itself. I may have over-calculated the sagacity and reasoning power of the bird. At any rate, I did over-calculate the amount of peas I should gather.

But my game was only half played. In another part of the garden were other peas, growing and blowing. To these I took good care not to attract the attention of the bird by any scarecrow whatever! I left the old scarecrow conspicuously flaunting above the old vines; and by this means I hope to keep the attention of the birds confined to that side of the garden. I am convinced that this is the true use of a scarecrow: it is a lure, and not a warning. If you wish to save men from any particular vice, set up a tremendous cry of warning about some other, and they will all give their special efforts to the one to which attention is called. This profound truth is about the only thing I have yet realized out of my pea-vines.

However, the garden does begin to yield. I know of nothing that makes one feel more complacent, in these July days, than to have his vegetables from his own garden. What an effect it has on the market-man and the butcher! It is a kind of declaration of independence. The market-man shows me his peas and beets and tomatoes, and supposes he shall send me out some with the meat. "No, I thank you," I say carelessly: "I am raising my own this year." Whereas I have been wont to remark, "Your vegetables look a little wilted this weather," I now say, "What a fine lot of vegetables you've got!" When a man is not going to buy, he can afford to be generous. To raise his own vegetables makes a person feel, somehow, more liberal. I think the butcher is touched by the influence, and cuts off a better roast for me. The butcher is my friend when he sees that I am not wholly dependent on him.

It is at home, however, that the effect is most marked, though sometimes in a way that I had not expected. I have never read of any Roman supper that seemed to me equal to a dinner of my own vegetables, when everything on the table is the product of my own labor, except the clams, which I have not been able to raise yet, and the chickens, which have withdrawn from the garden just when they were most attractive. It is strange what a taste you suddenly have for things you never liked before. The squash has always been to me a dish of contempt; but I eat it now as if it were my best friend. I never cared for the beet or the bean; but I fancy now that I could eat them all, tops and all, so completely have they been transformed by the soil in which they grew. I think the squash is less squashy, and the beet has a deeper hue of rose, for my care of them.

I had begun to nurse a good deal of pride in presiding over a table whereon was the fruit of my honest industry. But woman!--John Stuart Mill is right when he says that we do not know anything about women. Six thousand years is as one day with them. I thought I had something to do with those vegetables.

But when I saw Polly seated at her side of the table, presiding over the new and susceptible vegetables, flanked by the squash and the beans, and smiling upon the green corn and the new potatoes, as cool as the cucumbers which lay sliced in ice before her, and when she began to dispense the fresh dishes, I saw at once that the day of my destiny was over. You would have thought that she owned all the vegetables, and had raised them all from their earliest years. Such quiet, vegetable airs! Such gracious appropriation!

At length I said,--

"Polly, do you know who planted that squash, or those squashes?"

"James, I suppose."

"Well, yes, perhaps James did plant them to a certain extent. But who hoed them?"

"We did."

"_We_ did!" I said in the most sarcastic manner. "And I suppose _we_ put on the sackcloth and ashes, when the striped bug came at four o'clock, A.M., and we watched the tender leaves, and watered night and morning the feeble plants. I tell you, Polly," said I, uncorking the Bordeaux raspberry vinegar, "there is not a pea here that does not represent a drop of moisture wrung from my brow, not a beet that does not stand for a backache, not a squash that has not caused me untold anxiety, and I did hope--but I will say no more."

_Observation._--In this sort of family discussion, "I will say no more" is the most effective thing you can close up with.

I am not an alarmist. I hope I am as cool as anybody this hot summer. But I am quite ready to say to Polly or any other woman, "You can have the ballot; only leave me the vegetables, or, what is more important, the consciousness of power in vegetables." I see how it is. Woman is now supreme in the house. She already stretches out her hand to grasp the garden. She will gradually control everything. Woman is one of the ablest and most cunning creatures who have ever mingled in human affairs. I understand those women who say they don't want the ballot. They purpose to hold the real power while we go through the mockery of making laws. They want the power without the responsibility. (Suppose my squash had not come up, or my beans--as they threatened at one time--had gone the wrong way: where would I have been?) We are to be held to all the responsibilities. Woman takes the lead in all the departments, leaving us politics only. And what is politics? Let me raise the vegetables of a nation, says Polly, and I care not who makes its politics. Here I sat at the table, armed with the ballot, but really powerless among my own vegetables. While we are being amused by the ballot, woman is quietly taking things into her own hands.

NOTES

=comparative philology=:--The comparison of words from different languages, for the purpose of seeing what relationships can be found.

=protoplasm=:--"The physical basis of life"; the substance which passes life on from one vegetable or animal to another.

=attic salt=:--The delicate wit of the Athenians, who lived in the state of Attica, in Greece.

=parvenu=:--A French word meaning an upstart who tries to force himself into good society.

=Aaron's rod=:--See Numbers, 17:1-10.

=Bacchus and Venus=:--Bacchus was the Greek god of wine; Venus was the Greek goddess of love.

=Darwinian theory=:--Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882) was a great English scientist who proved that the higher forms of life have developed from the lower.

=natural selection=:--One of Darwin's theories, to the effect that nature weeds out the weak and unfit, leaving the others to continue the species; the result is called "the survival of the fittest."

=steal a while away=:--A quotation from a well known hymn beginning,--

I love to steal a while away From every cumbering care.

It was written in 1829, by Deodatus Dutton.

=Roman supper=:--The Romans were noted for the extravagance of their evening meals, at which all sorts of delicacies were served.

=John Stuart Mill=:--An English philosopher (1806-1873). He wrote about theories of government.

=Polly=:--The author's wife.

=the day of my destiny=:--A quotation from Lord Byron's poem, _Stanzas to Augusta_ [his sister]. The lines run:--

Though the day of my destiny's over, And the star of my fate hath declined, Thy soft heart refused to discover The faults that so many could find.

=sack-cloth and ashes=:--In old Jewish times, a sign of grief or mourning. See Esther, 4:1; Isaiah, 58:5.

=Bordeaux=:--A province in France noted for its wine.

QUESTIONS FOR STUDY

The author is writing of the ninth and tenth weeks of his work; he now has time to stop and moralize about his garden. Do not take what he says too seriously; look for the fun in it. Is he in earnest about the moral qualities of vegetables? Why cannot the bean figure in poetry and romance? Can you name any prose or verse in which corn does? Explain what is said about the resemblance of some people to cucumbers. Why is celery more aristocratic than potato? Is "them" the right word in the sentence: "I do not pull them up"? Explain what is meant by the paragraph on salads. Why is the tomato a "_parvenu_"? Does the author wish to cast a slur on the Darwinian theory? Is it true that moral character is influenced by what one eats? What is the catechism? What do you think of the author's theories about scarecrows? About "saving men from any particular vice"? Why does raising one's own vegetables make one feel generous? How does the author pass from vegetables to woman suffrage? Is he in earnest in what he says? What does one get out of a selection like this?

THEME SUBJECTS

My Summer on a Farm A Garden on the Roof The Truck Garden My First Attempt at Gardening Raspberrying Planting Time The Watermelon Patch Weeding the Garden Visiting in the Country Getting Rid of the Insects School Gardens A Window-box Garden Some Weeds of our Vicinity The Scarecrow Going to Market "Votes for Women" How Women Rule A Suffrage Meeting Why I Believe [or do not Believe] in Woman's Suffrage The "Militants"

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

=My First Attempt at Gardening=:--Tell how you came to make the garden. Was there any talk about it before it was begun? What were your plans concerning it? Did you spend any time in consulting seed catalogues? Tell about buying (or otherwise securing) the seeds. If you got them from some more experienced gardener than yourself, report the talk about them. Tell how you made the ground ready; how you planted the seeds. Take the reader into your confidence as to your hopes and uncertainties when the sprouts began to appear. Did the garden suffer any misfortunes from the frost, or the drought, or the depredations of the hens? Can you remember any conversation about it? Tell about the weeding, and what was said when it became necessary. Trace the progress of the garden; tell of its success or failure as time went on. What did you do with the products? Did any one praise or make fun of you? How did you feel? Did you want to have another garden?

=The Scarecrow=:--You might speak first about the garden--its prosperity and beauty, and the fruit or vegetables that it was producing. Then speak about the birds, and tell how they acted and what they did. Did you try driving them away? What was said about them? Now tell about the plans for the scarecrow. Give an account of how it was set up, and what clothes were put on it. How did it look? What was said about it? Give one or two incidents (real or imaginary) in which it was concerned. Was it of any use? How long did it remain in its place?

=Votes for Women=:--There are several ways in which you could deal with this subject:--

(_a_) If you have seen a suffrage parade, you might describe it and tell how it impressed you. (_b_) Perhaps you could write of some particular person who was interested in votes for women: How did she [or he] look, and what did she say? (_c_) Report a lecture on suffrage. (_d_) Give two or three arguments for or against woman's suffrage; do not try to take up too many, but deal with each rather completely. (_e_) Imagine two people talking together about suffrage--for instance, two old men; a man and a woman; a young woman and an old one; a child and a grown person; two children. (_f_) Imagine the author of the selection and his wife Polly talking about suffrage at the dinner table.

COLLATERAL READINGS

My Summer in a Garden Charles Dudley Warner Being a Boy " " " In the Wilderness " " " My Winter on the Nile " " " On Horseback " " " Back-log Studies " " " A Journey to Nature A.C. Wheeler The Making of a Country Home " " A Self-supporting Home Kate V. St. Maur Folks back Home Eugene Wood Adventures in Contentment David Grayson Adventures in Friendship " " The Friendly Road " " New Lives for Old William Carleton A Living without a Boss Anonymous The Fat of the Land J.W. Streeter The Jonathan Papers Elizabeth Woodbridge Adopting an Abandoned Farm Kate Sanborn Out-door Studies T.W. Higginson The Women of America Elizabeth McCracken The Country Home E.P. Powell Blessing the Cornfields (in _Hiawatha_) H.W. Longfellow The Corn Song (in _The Huskers_) J.G. Whittier Charles Dudley Warner (in _American Writers of To-day_, pp. 89-103) H.C. Vedder

THE SINGING MAN

JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

I

He sang above the vineyards of the world. And after him the vines with woven hands Clambered and clung, and everywhere unfurled Triumphing green above the barren lands; Till high as gardens grow, he climbed, he stood, Sun-crowned with life and strength, and singing toil, And looked upon his work; and it was good: The corn, the wine, the oil.

He sang above the noon. The topmost cleft That grudged him footing on the mountain scars He planted and despaired not; till he left His vines soft breathing to the host of stars. He wrought, he tilled; and even as he sang, The creatures of his planting laughed to scorn The ancient threat of deserts where there sprang The wine, the oil, the corn!

He sang not for abundance.--Over-lords Took of his tilth. Yet was there still to reap, The portion of his labor; dear rewards Of sunlit day, and bread, and human sleep. He sang for strength; for glory of the light. He dreamed above the furrows, 'They are mine!' When all he wrought stood fair before his sight With corn, and oil, and wine.

_Truly, the light is sweet_ _Yea, and a pleasant thing_ _It is to see the Sun._ _And that a man should eat_ _His bread that he hath won_;-- (_So is it sung and said_), _That he should take and keep_, _After his laboring_, _The portion of his labor in his bread_, _His bread that he hath won_; _Yea, and in quiet sleep_, _When all is done._

He sang; above the burden and the heat, Above all seasons with their fitful grace; Above the chance and change that led his feet To this last ambush of the Market-place. 'Enough for him,' they said--and still they say-- 'A crust, with air to breathe, and sun to shine; He asks no more!'--Before they took away The corn, the oil, the wine.

He sang. No more he sings now, anywhere. Light was enough, before he was undone. They knew it well, who took away the air, --Who took away the sun; Who took, to serve their soul-devouring greed, Himself, his breath, his bread--the goad of toil;-- Who have and hold, before the eyes of Need, The corn, the wine,--the oil!

_Truly, one thing is sweet_ _Of things beneath the Sun_; _This, that a man should earn his bread and eat_, _Rejoicing in his work which he hath done._ _What shall be sung or said_ _Of desolate deceit_, _When others take his bread_; _His and his children's bread?_-- _And the laborer hath none._ _This, for his portion now, of all that he hath done._ _He earns; and others eat._ _He starves;--they sit at meat_ _Who have taken away the Sun._

II

Seek him now, that singing Man. Look for him, Look for him In the mills, In the mines; Where the very daylight pines,-- He, who once did walk the hills! You shall find him, if you scan Shapes all unbefitting Man, Bodies warped, and faces dim. In the mines; in the mills Where the ceaseless thunder fills Spaces of the human brain Till all thought is turned to pain. Where the skirl of wheel on wheel, Grinding him who is their tool, Makes the shattered senses reel To the numbness of the fool. Perisht thought, and halting tongue-- (Once it spoke;--once it sung!) Live to hunger, dead to song. Only heart-beats loud with wrong Hammer on,--_How long?_ ... _How long?_--_How long?_

Search for him; Search for him; Where the crazy atoms swim Up the fiery furnace-blast. You shall find him, at the last,-- He whose forehead braved the sun,-- Wreckt and tortured and undone. Where no breath across the heat Whispers him that life was sweet; But the sparkles mock and flare, Scattering up the crooked air. (Blackened with that bitter mirk,-- Would God know His handiwork?)

Thought is not for such as he; Naught but strength, and misery; Since, for just the bite and sup, Life must needs be swallowed up. Only, reeling up the sky, Hurtling flames that hurry by, Gasp and flare, with _Why_--_Why_, ... _Why?_...

Why the human mind of him Shrinks, and falters and is dim When he tries to make it out: What the torture is about.-- Why he breathes, a fugitive Whom the World forbids to live. Why he earned for his abode, Habitation of the toad! Why his fevered day by day Will not serve to drive away Horror that must always haunt:-- ... _Want_ ... _Want!_ Nightmare shot with waking pangs;-- Tightening coil, and certain fangs, Close and closer, always nigh ... ... _Why?_... _Why?_

Why he labors under ban That denies him for a man. Why his utmost drop of blood Buys for him no human good; Why his utmost urge of strength Only lets Them starve at length;-- Will not let him starve alone; He must watch, and see his own Fade and fail, and starve, and die. . . . . . . . ... _Why?_... _Why?_ . . . . . . . Heart-beats, in a hammering song, Heavy as an ox may plod, Goaded--goaded--faint with wrong, Cry unto some ghost of God ... _How long_?... _How long?_ ... _How long?_

III

Seek him yet. Search for him! You shall find him, spent and grim; In the prisons, where we pen These unsightly shards of men. Sheltered fast; Housed at length; Clothed and fed, no matter how!-- Where the householders, aghast, Measure in his broken strength Nought but power for evil, now. Beast-of-burden drudgeries Could not earn him what was his: He who heard the world applaud Glories seized by force and fraud, He must break,--he must take!-- Both for hate and hunger's sake. He must seize by fraud and force; He must strike, without remorse! Seize he might; but never keep. Strike, his once!--Behold him here. (Human life we buy so cheap, Who should know we held it dear?)

No denial,--no defence From a brain bereft of sense, Any more than penitence. But the heart-beats now, that plod Goaded--goaded--dumb with wrong, Ask not even a ghost of God ... _How long_?

_When the Sea gives up its dead,_ _Prison caverns, yield instead_ _This, rejected and despised;_ _This, the Soiled and Sacrificed!_ _Without form or comeliness;_ _Shamed for us that did transgress_ _Bruised, for our iniquities,_ _With the stripes that are all his!_ _Face that wreckage, you who can._ _It was once the Singing Man._

IV

Must it be?--Must we then Render back to God again This His broken work, this thing, For His man that once did sing? Will not all our wonders do? Gifts we stored the ages through, (Trusting that He had forgot)-- Gifts the Lord requirèd not?

Would the all-but-human serve! Monsters made of stone and nerve; Towers to threaten and defy Curse or blessing of the sky; Shafts that blot the stars with smoke; Lightnings harnessed under yoke; Sea-things, air-things, wrought with steel, That may smite, and fly, and feel! Oceans calling each to each; Hostile hearts, with kindred speech. Every work that Titans can; Every marvel: save a man, Who might rule without a sword.-- Is a man more precious, Lord?

Can it be?--Must we then Render back to Thee again Million, million wasted men? Men, of flickering human breath, Only made for life and death?

Ah, but see the sovereign Few, Highly favored, that remain! These, the glorious residue, Of the cherished race of Cain. These, the magnates of the age, High above the human wage, Who have numbered and possesst All the portion of the rest!

What are all despairs and shames, What the mean, forgotten names Of the thousand more or less, For one surfeit of success?

For those dullest lives we spent, Take these Few magnificent! For that host of blotted ones, Take these glittering central suns. Few;--but how their lustre thrives On the million broken lives! Splendid, over dark and doubt, For a million souls gone out! These, the holders of our hoard,-- Wilt thou not accept them, Lord?

V

Oh in the wakening thunders of the heart, --The small lost Eden, troubled through the night, Sounds there not now,--forboded and apart, Some voice and sword of light? Some voice and portent of a dawn to break?-- Searching like God, the ruinous human shard Of that lost Brother-man Himself did make, And Man himself hath marred?

It sounds!--And may the anguish of that birth Seize on the world; and may all shelters fail, Till we behold new Heaven and new Earth Through the rent Temple-vail! When the high-tides that threaten near and far To sweep away our guilt before the sky,-- Flooding the waste of this dishonored Star, Cleanse, and o'ewhelm, and cry!

Cry, from the deep of world-accusing waves, With longing more than all since Light began, Above the nations,--underneath the graves,-- 'Give back the Singing Man!'

NOTES

=and it was good=:--Genesis, 1:31: "And God saw all that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

=the ancient threat of deserts=:--Isaiah, 35:1-2: "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."

=after his laboring=:--Luke, 10:7, and 1st Timothy, 5:18: "The laborer is worthy of his hire."

=portion of his labor=:--Ecclesiastes, 2:10: "For my heart rejoiced in my labor; and this was my portion of all my labor."

=the light is sweet=:--Ecclesiastes, 11:7: "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun."

=How long=:--Revelation, 6:10: "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"

=when the sea=:--Revelation, 20:13: "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it."

=rejected and despised=:--For this and the remainder of the stanza, see Isaiah, 53.

=Titans=:--In Greek mythology, powerful and troublesome giants.

=Cain=:--See the story of Cain, Genesis, 4:2-16.

=searching like God=:--Genesis, 4:9: "And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not! Am I my brother's keeper?"

=Temple-vail=:--At the death of Christ, the vail of the temple was rent; see Matthew, 27:51.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY[15]

Read the poem slowly and thoughtfully. The "singing man" is the laborer who, in days gone by, was happy in his work. People were not crowded into great cities, and there was more simple out-door labor than there is now, and less strife for wealth.

_Above the vineyards_: In Europe, vineyards are often planted on the slopes of hills and mountains. What ancient country do you think of in connection with "the corn [grain], the oil, the wine"? Were the laborers happy in that country? What were the "creatures" of man's planting (second stanza)? What was the "ancient threat" of deserts? Of what kind of deserts, as described here? Of what deserts would this be true after the rainy season? _Laughed to scorn_: Does this mean "outdid"? Mentally insert the word _something_ after _still_ in the second line of the third stanza. If the laborer in times gone by did not sing for abundance, what did he sing for (stanza three)? The verses in italics are a kind of refrain, as if the laborer were singing to himself. _So is it said and sung_ refers to the fact that these lines are adapted from passages in the Bible. _This last ambush_: What does the author mean here by suggesting that the laborer has been entrapped? Who are "they" in the line "'Enough for him,' they said"? How did they take away "the corn, the oil, the wine"? How did they take away "the air and the sun"? Who now has the product of the workman's toil? What are "the eyes of Need"? Is it true that one may work hard and still be in need? If it is true, who is to blame? What are "dim" faces? Why does the author begin the word _Man_ with a capital? What effect does too much hard work have upon the laborer? What is "the crooked air"? Who is represented as saying _Why_? How does the world forbid the laborer to live? Why are there dotted lines before and after _Why_ and _What_ and _How long_? Who are meant by _Them_ in the line beginning "Only lets"? Why does the author say that the prisons are filled with ill-used laborers? What does she mean by saying that the prisoners are "bruised for our iniquities"? What is gained here by using the language of the Bible? _The all-but-human_ means "almost intelligent"--referring to machinery. Does the author mean to praise the "sovereign Few"? Who are these "Few magnificent"? Are they really to blame for the sufferings of the poor? _Himself_ in the line beginning "Of that lost," refers to God. What is meant here by "a new Heaven and a new Earth"? What is "this dishonored Star"? What conditions does the author think will bring back the singing man? Are they possible conditions?

Re-read the poem, thinking of the author's protest against the sufferings of the poor and the selfishness of the rich. What do you think of the poem?

COLLATERAL READINGS

The Singing Man and Other Poems Josephine Preston Peabody The Piper " " " The Singing Leaves " " " Fortune and Men's Eyes " " " The Wolf of Gubbio " " " The Man with the Hoe Edwin Markham

THE DANCE OF THE BON-ODORI

LAFCADIO HEARN

(From _Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan_, Volume I,