by Eugene Field
XVIII
I STATE MY VIEWS ON TAXATION
Of the many friends who hastened to congratulate us when they heardthat we had acquired a home, none was more delighted than GamlinHarland. I take it for granted that you have read Mr. Harland'snumerous books, and that you know all about Mr. Harland himself. Notto know of him is to argue one's self unknown.
My first meeting with Mr. Harland was at a single-tax convention sixyears ago; he was a delegate to that convention from Wisconsin, and Iwas a delegate from Illinois. I was a delegate because the manager ofthe party, who lives in New York, could n't find anybody else to serveas the delegate from the congressional district in which I lived. Ithought that rather than have that district unrepresented I ought toserve, and so I did. The acquaintance I then made with Gamlin Harlandsoon ripened into friendship, and this intimacy has lasted ever since.Mr. Harland insists that I am a single-tax man, and it may be that I amin theory, although I certainly am not in practice; for I never havepaid any tax of any kind, be it single or double.
As soon as he heard of our purchase Mr. Harland came out to inspect thepremises, and of course he was delighted.
"This will make a new man of you," said he to me. "It will take yourmind off your impracticable star-gazing and moonshining, and divertyour attention into the channels of realism. These premises are sospacious as to admit of your engaging to a considerable extent inagriculture; you can now lay aside the telescope and the spectrum forthe spade and the hoe; the field of speculation can be abandoned forthis noble acre which I hope soon to see smiling into an abundantharvest."
"Yes," said I, "it is my purpose to engage largely in the cultivationof flowers."
"Pshaw!" cried Mr. Harland, "there you go again! Don't you know thatflowers are wholly worthless except in so far as they pander to thegratification of a sensuous appetite? It would be a crime to surrenderthese opportunities to ignoble uses. You must raise vegetables here,or perhaps some of the small fruits would thrive better in this richsandy soil."
Investigation satisfied Mr. Harland that blackberries were _the_particular kind of small fruit to which the soil seemed adapted. I wasnot surprised at this, for I knew that the blackberry was a favoritewith Mr. Harland--in fact, Mr. Harland is the only author I know of whohas written a novel whose plot hinges (so to speak) upon a blackberry.So passionately fond of this fruit is he that he devotes a part of theyear to cultivating blackberries on his Wisconsin farm. There areinvidious persons who intimate that his only reason for cultivating theblackberry is to be found in the fact that nothing else will grow onhis farm, and presumably you have heard the epigram which theromanticists have perpetrated at Mr. Harland's expense, and whichrepresents that ambitious and aggressive gentleman as raisingblackberries in summer and ---- in winter.
After getting me thoroughly inoculated with the blackberry idea, andhaving duly impressed me with his theory that true manhood consisted ofmaking one's self unspeakably miserable and sweaty with a shovel and ahoe, Mr. Harland broached his favorite topic, and ventured theassertion that now that I was the possessor of taxable property I wouldbecome as rabid a single-tax advocate as Henry George himself. Ianswered that I already advocated a single-tax system, for the reasonthat if we could only once get a single-tax system in vogue we shouldthen be but one remove from no taxation at all, and would have lessdifficulty in securing that desirable end ultimately.
The truth of the matter is, I object to taxation only in so far as itaffects me. I have no objection to other folk being taxed, but I donot fancy being taxed myself. I agree with Brother Harland that thereis palpable injustice in making an industrious and public-spirited manpay for the so-called privilege of building himself a home; he pays thecarpenters and masons and painters for making that home, and he is thenexpected to pay the city and the State for having invested his hardearnings in a permanent enterprise which gives employment to thelaborer, which beautifies the neighborhood, and which enhances thevalue of the adjacent property. The object of taxation (as Mr. Harlandasserts and as I believe) is to enrich the office-holding class, aclass of loose morality, utterly heartless and utterly conscienceless,and I agree with Mr. Harland in the opinion that the time is not fardistant when the honest people of this country will arise as one manand subvert the corrupt hand of politics which is now grinding us underthe iron heel of oppression.
It is seldom that I give expression to my views upon this subject, forthe reason that I fear they may be misinterpreted. I have always hadan apprehension that I would be mistaken for an anarchist, which I amnot; I am an advocate of peace and of the laws; I do not believe inviolence of any kind.
And now that I am speaking of violence, I am reminded of an incidentwhich illustrates the thoughtless cruelty of too many of our youth. Itwas scarcely two weeks ago that I detected a boy (apparently abouttwelve years of age) climbing one of the willow trees in our oldSchmittheimer place. I crept up on him unawares and speedily becamesatisfied that he was after the eggs in a bird's nest that nestledcozily in a crotch of the limbs. I shouted lustily at the youngscapegrace, and his confusion convinced me that my suspicions werecorrect. I kept him in his uncomfortable position in the tree until Ihad lectured him severely for the cruelty he contemplated and until Ihad exacted from him a promise that he would forever thereafter abstainfrom the practice of robbing birds' nests. The tears which trickleddown his face assured me no less than his solemn protests did that thelad was indeed penitent, but the fellow had no sooner descended fromthe tree and reached a point of safety the other side of the fence thanhe gave utterance to sentiments which wholly disabused my mind of allfaith in his previous professions of reform.
I have never been able to understand what pleasure can accrue from thespoliation of the homes of birds, the beautiful musical creatures thatcontribute so largely toward making the world cheerful. One of thepleasantest recollections of my boyhood is that in all that activeperiod I never once killed or wounded a bird or robbed its nest. And Ithink that the kindest act I ever did--at least the one which I recallwith the most satisfaction--was my release of a caged bird. Acareless, heedless neighbor had caught and caged a redbird, and themournful twittering of the poor creature as he fluttered incessantlybehind the bars of his prison pained and haunted me. The redbird cannever be reconciled to confinement; he is of the forest; the wildnessof his peculiar note indicates the restlessness of his nature. So fornearly a year the melancholy twittering and the fluttering of thatcaged bird haunted me.
One morning--it was in the gracious May time--I awoke early. The sunwas just coming up and was kissing the tears from lovely Nature's face.The air was full of coolness and of sweet smells. Then, hearing thequerulous note of the imprisoned bird upon the porch yonder, Idetermined to set the poor thing free. So I dressed myself and stoleout into the graciousness of the early morning. To my last day I shallnot forget the delight, the rapture, with which that released birdmounted from the doorway of his cage and sped away!
One of the most treasured relics I have is a poem which my father wrotewhen I was a little boy. My father was a native of Maine, but for allthat he was a man of sentiment and he had much literary taste, andability, too. The poem which he gave me, and which I have alwaystreasured, will (if I am not grievously in error) touch a responsivechord in many a human heart, for all humanity looks back withtenderness to the time of youth.
THE MORNING BIRD
A bird sat in the maple tree And this was the song he sang to me: "O little boy, awake, arise! The sun is high in the morning skies; The brook's a-play in the pasture lot And wondereth that the little boy It loveth dearly cometh not To share its turbulence and joy; The grass hath kisses cool and sweet For truant little brown bare feet-- So come, O child, awake, arise! The sun is high in the morning skies!"
So from the yonder maple tree The bird kept singing unto me; But that was very long ago-- I did not think--I did not know-- Else would I not have longer slept And dreamt the precious hours
away; Else would I from my bed have leapt To greet another happy day-- A day, untouched of care and ruth, With sweet companionship of youth-- The dear old friends which you and I Knew in the happy years gone by!
Still in the maple can be heard The music of the morning bird, And still the song is of the day That runneth o'er with childish play; Still of each pleasant old-time place And of the old-time friends I knew-- The pool where hid the furtive dace, The lot the brook went scampering through; The mill, the lane, the bellflower tree That used to love to shelter me-- And all those others I knew _then_, But which I cannot know again!
Alas! from yonder maple tree The morning bird sings not to me; Else would his ghostly voice prolong An evening, not a morning, song And he would tell of each dear spot I knew so well and cherished then, As all forgetting, not forgot By him who would be young again! O child, the voice from yonder tree Calleth to _you_, and not to _me_; So wake and know those friendships all I would to God I could recall!