BAKER FARM |
SOMETIMES I
rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, or like fleets at sea,
full-rigged, with wavy boughs, and rippling with light, so soft and
green and shady that the Druids would have forsaken their oaks to
worship in them; or to the cedar wood beyond Flint's Pond, where the
trees, covered with hoary blue berries, spiring higher and higher,
are fit to stand before Valhalla, and the creeping juniper covers the
ground with wreaths full of fruit; or to swamps where the usnea
lichen hangs in festoons from the white spruce trees, and toadstools,
round tables of the swamp gods, cover the ground, and more beautiful
fungi adorn the stumps, like butterflies or shells, vegetable
winkles; where the swamp-pink and dogwood grow, the red alder berry
glows like eyes of imps, the waxwork grooves and crushes the hardest
woods in its folds, and the wild holly berries make the beholder
forget his home with their beauty, and he is dazzled and tempted by
nameless other wild forbidden fruits, too fair for mortal taste.
Instead of calling on some scholar, I paid many a visit to particular
trees, of kinds which are rare in this neighborhood, standing far
away in the middle of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or
swamp, or on a hilltop; such as the black birch, of which we have
some handsome specimens two feet in diameter; its cousin, the yellow
birch, with its loose golden vest, perfumed like the first; the
beech, which has so neat a hole and beautifully lichen-painted,
perfect in all its details, of which, excepting scattered specimens,
I know but one small grove of sizable trees left in the township,
supposed by some to have been planted by the pigeons that were once
baited with beechnuts near by; it is worth the while to see the
silver grain sparkle when you split this wood; the bass; the
hornbeam; the Celtis occidentalis, or false elm, of which we have but
one well-grown; some taller mast of a pine, a shingle tree, or a more
perfect hemlock than usual, standing like a pagoda in the midst of
the woods; and many others I could mention. These were the shrines I
visited both summer and winter.
Once it chanced that I stood
in the very abutment of a rainbow's arch, which filled the lower
stratum of the atmosphere, tinging the grass and leaves around, and
dazzling me as if I looked through colored crystal. It was a lake of
rainbow light, in which, for a short while, I lived like a dolphin.
If it had lasted longer it might have tinged my employments and life.
As I walked on the railroad causeway, I used to wonder at the halo of
light around my shadow, and would fain fancy myself one of the elect.
One who visited me declared that the shadows of some Irishmen before
him had no halo about them, that it was only natives that were so
distinguished. Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his memoirs, that, after
a certain terrible dream or vision which he had during his
confinement in the castle of St. Angelo a resplendent light appeared
over the shadow of his head at morning and evening, whether he was in
Italy or France, and it was particularly conspicuous when the grass
was moist with dew. This was probably the same phenomenon to which I
have referred, which is especially observed in the morning, but also
at other times, and even by moonlight. Though a constant one, it is
not commonly noticed, and, in the case of an excitable imagination
like Cellini's, it would be basis enough for superstition. Beside, he
tells us that he showed it to very few. But are they not indeed
distinguished who are conscious that they are regarded at all?
I
set out one afternoon to go a-fishing to Fair Haven, through the
woods, to eke out my scanty fare of vegetables. My way led through
Pleasant Meadow, an adjunct of the Baker Farm, that retreat of which
a poet has since sung, beginning,
"Thy
entry is a pleasant field,
Which some mossy fruit trees
yield
Partly to a ruddy brook,
By gliding musquash
undertook,
And mercurial trout,
Darting about."
I thought of living
there before I went to Walden. I "hooked" the apples,
leaped the brook, and scared the musquash and the trout. It was one
of those afternoons which seem indefinitely long before one, in which
many events may happen, a large portion of our natural life, though
it was already half spent when I started. By the way there came up a
shower, which compelled me to stand half an hour under a pine, piling
boughs over my head, and wearing my handkerchief for a shed; and when
at length I had made one cast over the pickerelweed, standing up to
my middle in water, I found myself suddenly in the shadow of a cloud,
and the thunder began to rumble with such emphasis that I could do no
more than listen to it. The gods must be proud, thought I, with such
forked flashes to rout a poor unarmed fisherman. So I made haste for
shelter to the nearest hut, which stood half a mile from any road,
but so much the nearer to the pond, and had long been uninhabited:
"And
here a poet builded,
In the completed years,
For behold a
trivial cabin
That to destruction steers."
So the Muse fables. But therein, as I found, dwelt
now John Field, an Irishman, and his wife, and several children, from
the broad-faced boy who assisted his father at his work, and now came
running by his side from the bog to escape the rain, to the wrinkled,
sibyl-like, cone-headed infant that sat upon its father's knee as in
the palaces of nobles, and looked out from its home in the midst of
wet and hunger inquisitively upon the stranger, with the privilege of
infancy, not knowing but it was the last of a noble line, and the
hope and cynosure of the world, instead of John Field's poor
starveling brat. There we sat together under that part of the roof
which leaked the least, while it showered and thundered without. I
had sat there many times of old before the ship was built that
floated his family to America. An honest, hard-working, but shiftless
man plainly was John Field; and his wife, she too was brave to cook
so many successive dinners in the recesses of that lofty stove; with
round greasy face and bare breast, still thinking to improve her
condition one day; with the never absent mop in one hand, and yet no
effects of it visible anywhere. The chickens, which had also taken
shelter here from the rain, stalked about the room like members of
the family, to humanized, methought, to roast well. They stood and
looked in my eye or pecked at my shoe significantly. Meanwhile my
host told me his story, how hard he worked "bogging" for a
neighboring farmer, turning up a meadow with a spade or bog hoe at
the rate of ten dollars an acre and the use of the land with manure
for one year, and his little broad-faced son worked cheerfully at his
father's side the while, not knowing how poor a bargain the latter
had made. I tried to help him with my experience, telling him that he
was one of my nearest neighbors, and that I too, who came a-fishing
here, and looked like a loafer, was getting my living like himself;
that I lived in a tight, light, and clean house, which hardly cost
more than the annual rent of such a ruin as his commonly amounts to;
and how, if he chose, he might in a month or two build himself a
palace of his own; that I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter,
nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them;
again, as I did not work hard, I did not have to eat hard, and it
cost me but a trifle for my food; but as he began with tea, and
coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work hard to pay
for them, and when he had worked hard he had to eat hard again to
repair the waste of his system- and so it was as broad as it was
long, indeed it was broader than it was long, for he was discontented
and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he had rated it as a
gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and coffee,
and meat every day. But the only true America is that country where
you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to
do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you
to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which
directly or indirectly result from the use of such things. For I
purposely talked to him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to be
one. I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a
wild state, if that were the consequence of men's beginning to redeem
themselves. A man will not need to study history to find out what is
best for his own culture. But alas! the culture of an Irishman is an
enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe. I told him,
that as he worked so hard at bogging, he required thick boots and
stout clothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn out, but I wore
light shoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so much, though he
might think that I was dressed like a gentleman (which, however, was
not the case), and in an hour or two, without labor, but as a
recreation, I could, if I wished, catch as many fish as I should want
for two days, or earn enough money to support me a week. If he and
his family would live simply, they might all go a-huckleberrying in
the summer for their amusement. John heaved a sigh at this, and his
wife stared with arms a-kimbo, and both appeared to be wondering if
they had capital enough to begin such a course with, or arithmetic
enough to carry it through. It was sailing by dead reckoning to them,
and they saw not clearly how to make their port so; therefore I
suppose they still take life bravely, after their fashion, face to
face, giving it tooth and nail, not having skill to split its massive
columns with any fine entering wedge, and rout it in detail;-
thinking to deal with it roughly, as one should handle a thistle. But
they fight at an overwhelming disadvantage- living, John Field, alas!
without arithmetic, and failing so.
"Do you ever fish?"
I asked. "Oh yes, I catch a mess now and then when I am lying
by; good perch I catch.- "What's your bait?" "I catch
shiners with fishworms, and bait the perch with them." "You'd
better go now, John," said his wife, with glistening and hopeful
face; but John demurred.
The shower was now over, and a
rainbow above the eastern woods promised a fair evening; so I took my
departure. When I had got without I asked for a drink, hoping to get
a sight of the well bottom, to complete my survey of the premises;
but there, alas! are shallows and quicksands, and rope broken withal,
and bucket irrecoverable. Meanwhile the right culinary vessel was
selected, water was seemingly distilled, and after consultation and
long delay passed out to the thirsty one- not yet suffered to cool,
not yet to settle. Such gruel sustains life here, I thought; so,
shutting my eyes, and excluding the motes by a skilfully directed
undercurrent, I drank to genuine hospitality the heartiest draught I
could. I am not squeamish in such cases when manners are
concerned.
As I was leaving the Irishman's roof after the
rain, bending my steps again to the pond, my haste to catch pickerel,
wading in retired meadows, in sloughs and bog-holes, in forlorn and
savage places, appeared for an instant trivial to me who had been
sent to school and college; but as I ran down the hill toward the
reddening west, with the rainbow over my shoulder, and some faint
tinkling sounds borne to my ear through the cleansed air, from I know
not what quarter, my Good Genius seemed to say- Go fish and hunt far
and wide day by day- farther and wider- and rest thee by many brooks
and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days
of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek
adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night
overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than
these, no worthier games than may here be played. Grow wild according
to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will never become
English bay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to
farmers' crops? that is not its errand to thee. Take shelter under
the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not to get a
living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not.
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying
and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.
O Baker
Farm!
"Landscape where the richest element
Is a little
sunshine innocent."...
"No one runs to revel
On thy
rail-fenced lea."...
"Debate with no man hast
thou,
With questions art never perplexed,
As tame at the first
sight as now,
In thy plain russet gabardine dressed."
"Come
ye who love,
And ye who hate,
Children of the Holy Dove,
And
Guy Faux of the state,
And hang conspiracies
From the tough
rafters of the trees!"
Men come tamely
home at night only from the next field or street, where their
household echoes haunt, and their life pines because it breathes its
own breath over again; their shadows, morning and evening, reach
farther than their daily steps. We should come home from far, from
adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new
experience and character.
Before I had reached the pond some
fresh impulse had brought out John Field, with altered mind, letting
go "bogging" ere this sunset. But he, poor man, disturbed
only a couple of fins while I was catching a fair string, and he said
it was his luck; but when we changed seats in the boat luck changed
seats too. Poor John Field!- I trust he does not read this, unless he
will improve by it- thinking to live by some derivative old-country
mode in this primitive new country- to catch perch with shiners. It
is good bait sometimes, I allow. With his horizon all his own, yet he
a poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor
life, his Adam's grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this
world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting
feet get talaria to their heels.
HIGHER
LAWS
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