Chapter III
NEW JOY IN AN OLD ORCHARD
The following morning was a balmy and exquisite first of May, but realismagain compels me to confess that, having been an English instructorfor seven years, and having read manuscripts the night before till 2A.M., I did not leap lightly from my couch at the breakfast call, nor didI sing ecstatically, as I looked from my window:
_"Im wunderschoenen Monat Mai."_
What I actually did was to curse to myself at having to clean my teethin bitterly cold water, something I have always loathed. Nor was Igreatly cheered by Mrs. Temple's coffee. The New England farmer's wifecan cook everything but coffee. But there seems to be something inthat simple art which completely baffles her. Perhaps the coffee hassomething to do with it!
Her cheery face, however, was not long to be resisted, and Bert hustledme off immediately after the meal to meet Hard Cider Howard, whom, bysome rural wireless, he had already summoned.
As we walked down the road, I glanced toward my lone pine, and saw myhorse and Mike's hitched to the plough, with Joe driving and Mikeholding the handles. Across the green pasture, between the road andthe hayfield, already four rich brown furrows were shining up to the sun.
"Well, Mike didn't wait long!" I exclaimed. "I wonder why he startedin there?"
"I told him to," said Bert. "That's goin' ter be yer pertater cropthis year."
"Is it?" said I. "Why?" I felt a little peeved. After all, this was_my_ farm.
"Cuz it's pasture land thet's good fer pertaters, an' yer don't needit fer the cows, an' it kin be worked ter give yer a crop right off,even though 'twant ploughed under in the fall," Bert answered. "Youtrust yer Uncle Hiram fer a bit, sonny."
I blushed at my own peevishness, and thanked him humbly. At the house wefound awaiting a strange-looking man, small, wrinkled, unkempt, with adiscouraged moustache and a nose of a decidedly brighter hue than therest of his countenance. He was tapping at the sills of the house.
"How about it, Hard? Cement?" said Bert.
Hard Cider nodded to me, with a keen glance from his little, bloodshoteyes.
"Yep," he said. "Stucco over it. Brick underpinnin's be ez good eznoo. Go inside."
We stepped upon the side porch, Bert handing me the key and I opening thedoor of my new dwelling with a secret thrill. Hard Cider at once beganon the kitchen floor, ripping up a plank to examine the timbers beneath.There was no cellar under the kitchen, but the timbers were, like thoseof the barn, huge beams of hand-hewn oak, and were sound.
"Plane them planks down and lay a maple floor over 'em," said Hard,with an air of finality.
"Very well," said I meekly. "But my woodwork has got to be cypressin the living-room. I insist on cypress."
"New step," he added, as we came to the door up into the main house.
"Hold on!" said I. "This door leads into the front hall. I don't wantthat. I want this door closed up and put into the north room, which I'mgoing to use for a dining-room."
"Ain't goin' ter eat in the kitchen, eh? Very well," said Hard.He examined the old door frame carefully, and jotted something in adirty notebook, which he drew from his pocket, first wetting his flatcarpenter's pencil on his tongue.
We found that the north room had apparently been used only as a kind ofstorage closet, doubtless because there was no heater in the house. Ithad never been papered, and the walls, with a little touching up, wereready for kalsomining. Hard examined the plaster with the loving eye ofa connoisseur.
"Built ter last in them days," I heard him mutter.
The room extended half the depth of the house, which, to be sure, wasnot great. Beyond it was a second room, on the northeast corner, of thesame size.
We now crossed the hall to the south side, where there were twocorresponding rooms. Here, as on the other side, the chimney andfireplaces were on the inside walls, and the mantels were of a simplebut very good colonial pattern, though they had been browned by smokeand time to dirt colour.
"Now I want these two rooms made into one," said I. "I want one of thedoors into the hall closed up, and a glass door cut out of the south sideto a pergola veranda. Can you do it?"
Hard examined the partition. He climbed on a box which we dragged in,and ripped away plaster and woodwork ruthlessly, both at the top and atplaces on the sides, all without speaking a word.
"Yep," he said finally, "ef yer don't mind a big crossbeam showin'.She's solid oak. Yer door, though, 'll have to be double, with a beamin the middle."
"Fine!" I cried. "One to go in by, one to go out. Guests please keepto the right!"
"Hev ter alter yer chimney," he added, "or yer'll hev twofireplaces."
"Fine again!" cried I. "A long room with two fireplaces, and adouble-faced bookcase coming out at right angles between them, withtwo settles below it, one for each fireplace! Better than I'd dreamed!"
"Suit yerself," said Hard.
We next arranged tentatively for a brick veranda with a pergola top onthe southern end of the house, and then went upstairs. Here the foursmall chambers needed little but minor repairs and plaster work, savethat over the dining-room, which was to be converted into the bathroom.The great space over the kitchen was to be cut into two servants'bedrooms, with dormer windows. It already had the two windows, oneto the north and one to the south, and had evidently been used as adrying-room for apples and the like. Hard figured here for some time,and then led us silently downstairs again, and through the front door.
My front doorway had once been a thing of beauty, with two little panelwindows at the sides, and above all, on the outside, a heavy, hand-carvedbroken pediment, like the top of a Governor Winthrop highboy. Hardlooked at it with admiration gleaming in his eyes. "I'd ruther restorethis than all the rest o' the job," he said, and his ugly, rumsoakedlittle face positively shone with enthusiasm.
"Go ahead," said I; "only I want the new steps of brick, widelyspaced, with a lot of cement showing between. I'm going to terrace ithere in front, too--a grass terrace for ten feet out."
"Thet's right, thet's right!" he exclaimed. "Now I'll go order thelumber, an' bring yer the estimate termorrer."
"Seems to me the usual proceeding would be the other way around!" Igasped.
"Well, yer want me ter do the job, don't yer? Or don't yer?" he saidbrusquely.
"Of course, of course!" I amended hastily. "Go ahead!"
Hard climbed into a broken-down wagon, and disappeared. "Don't youworry," said Bert. "I'll see he treats yer right."
"It isn't that," I said sadly. "It's that I've just remembered Iforgot to include any painters' bills in my own estimate."
Bert looked at me in a kind of speechless pity for a moment. Then he saidslowly: "Wal, I'll be swizzled! Wait till I tell maw! An' her alwaysstickin' up fer a college education!"
"Just for that, I'll show you!" cried I. "I never trimmed an appletree in my life, but I'm going to work on this orchard, and I'm goingto save it, all myself. It will be better than yours in three years."
"Go to it," laughed Bert. "Come back fer dinner, though. Neow I'lldrive over ter the depot an' git yer freight. They telephoned thismornin' it had come."
"Good!" I cried. "You might bring me a bag of cement, too, and agallon of carbolic acid."
"Ye ain't tired o' life so soon, be yer?"
"No," said I, "but I'm going to show you rubes how to treat anorchard."
Bert went off laughing, and presently I saw him driving toward town withhis heavy wagon. I walked up to the plateau field to greet Mike. As Icrested the ridge the field lay before me, the great, lone pine standingsentinel at the farther side; and half of it was frail, young green, andhalf rich, shining brown.
"She ploughs tough, sor," said Mike, as the panting horses paused forbreath, "but she'll harrer down good. Be the seed pertaters come yit?"
"Bert has gone for them," said I. "Let me hold the plough once."
Mike, I fancied, winked at his son Joe, who was a strong lad of twenty,with an amiable Irish grin. So everybody w
as regarding me as a joke!Well, I was, even then, as strong as Mike, and I'd held a sweep, ifnot a plough! I picked up the handles and lifted the plough around,setting the point to the new furrow. Joe started the horses. The bladewabbled, took a mad skid for the surface, and the handles hit me a blowin the ribs which knocked my breath out. Mike grinned. I set my teethand the ploughshare, and again Joe started the horses. Putting forthall my strength I held the plough under the sod this time, but the furrowI ploughed started merrily away from the straight line, in spite ofall my efforts, and began to run out into the unbroken ground to theleft. I pulled the plough back again to the starting-point, and triedonce more. This trip, when I reached the point where my first furrow haddeparted from the straight and narrow way, the cross strip of sod cameover the point like a comber over a boat's bow, and the horses stoppedwith a jerk, while the point went down and again the handles smote me inthe ribs.
"It ain't so azy as it looks," said Mike.
"I'll do it if I haven't a rib left," said I grimly.
And I did it. My first full furrow looked like the track of a snakeunder the influence of liquor, but I reversed the plough and came backfairly straight. I was beginning to get the hang of it. My next furrowwas respectable, but not deep. But on the second return trip I ploughedher straight, and I ploughed her deep, and that without exerting nearlyso much beef as on the first try. Most things are easy when you once knowhow.
On this return trip the sweat was starting from my forehead, and thesmell of the horses and of the warm, fresh-turned earth was strong in mynostrils. I didn't look at my pine, nor think of book plates. I wasproud at what I had done, and my muscles gloried in the toil. Again Iswung the plough around, and drove it across the field, feeling thereluctant grass roots fighting every muscle of my arms.
"There," said I, triumphantly, "you plough all the rest as deep asthat!"
"Begobs, ye'z all right!" cried Mike.
I went back again down the slope with all the joy of a small boy who hassuddenly made an older boy recognize his importance. I went at once tothe shed, found a rusty saw (for my pruning saws, of course, had notyet come), and descended upon the orchard. I had a couple of bulletinson pruning in my pocket, with pictures of old trees remorselessly headeddown. I took a fresh look at the pictures, reread some of the text whereI had marked it, and tackled the first tree, carefully repeating tomyself: "Remove only a third the first year, remove only a third thefirst year."
This, I decided, quite naturally did not refer to dead wood. By thetime I had the dead wood cut out of that first old tree, and all thewater spouts removed (as I recalled my grandfather used to call them),which didn't seem necessary for new bearing wood, the poor thing beganto look naked. On one side an old water spout or sucker had achievedthe dignity of a limb and shot far into the air. I was up in the treecarefully heading this back and out when Bert came driving by with hiswagon heaped to overflowing.
"Hi!" he called, "yer tryin' ter kill them trees entire!"
I got down and came out to the road. "You're a fine man and a truefriend, Mr. Temple," said I, "but I'm going to be the doctor for thisorchard. A chap's got to have _some_ say for himself, you know."
"Well, they ain't much good, anyhow, them trees," said Bert cheerfully.
We now fell to unloading the wagon. We opened up the woodsheds andstorehouse behind the kitchen, stowed in the barrels of seed potatoes,the fertilizers, the various other seeds, the farm implements, sprayers,and so on. The hotbed frames and sashes were put away for future use,as it was too late to need them now. The horse hoe Bert had not beenable to bring on this trip. Next we got my books and furniture intothe house or shed, and tired, hot, and dirty, we drove on up the roadfor dinner. As we passed the upper field, I saw that the ploughingwas nearly done. The brown furrows had already lost their gloss, as myhands had already lost their whiteness.
"Well, I'm a farmer now!" said I, surveying my soil-caked boots andgrimy clothes.
"Yer on the way, anyhow," said Bert. "But yer'll have ter cultivatethet field hard, seein's how it oughter hev been ploughed last fall."
That afternoon I went back to my orchard, got out my shiny and sharp newdouble-edged pruning saw, and sawed till both arms ached. I sawedunder limbs and over limbs, right-handed and left-handed, standing on myfeet and on my head. I obeyed the first rule, to saw close to thetrunk, so the bark can cover the scar. I obeyed the rule to let lightinto the tops. I didn't head my trees down as much as the picturesindicated, for I wanted my orchard before the house as a decorationquite as much as a source of fruit supply. One old tree, split by awinter storm, I decided to chop down entirely. About half-past three,as I supposed it to be, I went for an axe, and heard Mike putting thehorse into the barn and calling the cows. I looked at my watch. It wasfive o'clock! I didn't get the axe, but walked back and surveyed thehavoc I had wrought--dead limbs strewing the ground, bright-barked waterspouts lying among them, tangles of top branches heaped high, and abovethis litter three old trees rising, apparently half denuded, with greatwhite scars all over them where the limbs had been removed. I had gonethat first day across half the top row of the orchard, and I suddenlyrealized that during the entire time I had been at work not a thoughthad crossed my mind except of apple trees and their culture. I hadbeen utterly absorbed, joyfully absorbed, in the process of sawingoff limbs! Where, said I to myself, are those poetic reflections,those delicious day dreams which come, in books, to the workers ingardens? Can it be that, in reality, the good gardener thinks of hisjob? Or am I simply a bad gardener?
I decided to go to the barn and ask Mike. I found him washing hishands, preparatory to milking, and looking extremely bored. He usedan antiseptic solution which Bert had provided, for Bert was stillbuying my milk.
"Sure, it's silly rules they be makin' now about a little thing likemilkin'," he said.
I wasn't ready to argue with him then, but I secretly resolved that I'dmake him wear a milking coat, also. I asked abruptly: "Mike, what doyou think about when you are working in the garden?"
Mike reflected quite seriously for a full moment, while the alternatering of the milk streams sang a tune on the bottom of the pail.
"Begobs, Oi niver thought o' that before," he said. "Sure, it'sinterestin' to think what ye think about. Oi guess Oi thinks mostlyo' me gardenin'. It ain't till Oi straightens the kink out o' meback and gits me lunch pail in the shade that Oi begins to wonder if theDimicrats 'll carry the country or why we can't go sivin days without adrink, like the camels."
"You sort of have to keep your mind on your job, to do it right, eh?"
"Sure, if ye've got one to keep," Mike laughed.
The milk streams had ceased to ring. They were sizzling now, for thebottom of the pail was covered. There was a warm smell of milk in thestable, and of hay and cattle. Through the little door at the end I sawframed a pretty landscape of my pasture, then woods rising up a hill,and then the blue mountains, purpling now with sunset. My arms ached.My ribs, where the plough handles had hit, were sore. I was sleepily,deliciously, tired. I had done a real day's work. I was rather proudof it, too, proud that I could stand so much physical toil. After all, itis human to glory in your muscles.
"Good night," I called to Mike, as I started for home.
"Good night, sor," he sang cheerily back.
Upon the plateau I saw my rusty old disk harrow--a legacy fromMilt--standing on the brown earth. The furrows had disappeared. The fieldwas almost ready for planting. I took a bath, rubbing my ribs andaching shoulders very tenderly, ate my supper hungrily, and settled downto my manuscripts. In ten minutes I was nodding.
"Good heavens!" said I, "this will never do! I'll have to get up inthe morning and work."
So I bade Mrs. Temple wake me when she got up at five.
"Well," I reflected, as I tumbled into bed, "you can't haveeverything and a country estate, too. Fancy _me_ getting up at fiveo'clock!"
The Idyl of Twin Fires Page 3