Clifton Johnson

“ Gaps have broken in the stone walls along the roadway, and the brambles are thick springing on either side. In the front yard is a gnarled, untrimmed apple-tree with a great broken limb sagging to the ground, and about a ragged growth of bushes. As time goes on, the house falls piece by piece, and at last only the shattered chimney stands, a grim monument of the one-day comfortable home—a memorial of the dead past. 37 Yet even now life is not all of the past. ”

“ Then began a fierce battle, and soon the gate burst open, and Peach-boy with the dog and monkey rushed in raging like lions. The demons, who thought that they only had to do with one bird, were much alarmed, yet they fought bravely, and even their children joined in the fray. The sound of their yells as it mingled with the sound of the waves beating on the shore was truly terrible. ”

“ OLD FIREPLACE
PART I
OLD TIMES ON A NEW ENGLAND FARM
A FOOT-STOVE
About “old times” there always hovers a peculiar charm. A dreamland atmosphere overhangs them. The present, as we battle along through it, seems full of hard, dry facts; but, looking back, experience takes on a rosy hue. The sharp edges are gone. Even the trials and difficulties which assailed us have for the most part lost their power to pain or try us, and take on a story-book interest in this mellow land of memories. ”

“ There she met a mouse who said to her, “Where are you going all alone, my pretty maiden?”
“I am seeking the Mother of Time,” Channa replied.
“You have a long way to go,” the mouse commented. “But do not lose heart. Go to yonder mountain, and you will obtain more news to help you in your search. And when you find the Mother of Time, will you do me one favor? Ask her what we mice can do to get rid of the tyranny of the cats.” ”

“ The life possible on these farms would seem much happier and more desirable than that possible to the poor family in the tenement of a factory village or in the crowded quarters of our cities. But the country is to such very “lonesome,” and there is hardly a city family of the more ignorant classes but will choose squalor in the city rather than comfort in the country. The noise and continual movement of the town have become a part of their lives, and severed from that it is but a blank, unspeaking landscape unfolds before their eyes. Nature is really never lonesome. ”

“ Presently a meadow opened before me, and across it lay the little village of Hoosac. The great hills swept up skyward from the level, and here and there in the cleared places you could see bits of houses perched on the dizzy slope, and seeming as if they might get loose and come sliding down into the valley almost any day.
AN OUTLYING VILLAGE
At the tunnel was a high railroad bridge spanning the river, a long freight train waiting, a round signal station, a few houses, and the lines of iron rails running into the gloomy aperture in the side of the hill. ”

“ No sooner did she finish the ascent than Fatima called from below, “Anne, Sister Anne, do you see any one coming?”
Anne replied sadly, “I see nothing but the sun shining and the grass growing tall and green.”
Several times Fatima put the same question and each time she received the same answer.
Meanwhile Bluebeard was waiting with a scimitar in one hand and his watch in the other. At length he shouted in a fierce voice: “The ten minutes are almost gone! Make an end to your prayers!”
“Anne, Sister Anne!” Fatima called softly, “look again. Is there no one on the road?” ”

“ It seemed to me there was one sort of youngster who had need to reform. You find this variety in every village where half a dozen boys can get together. He talks in a loud voice when any witnesses or a stranger is about, is rude to his fellows, jostles them and orders them about, cracks crude jokes, either exceedingly pointless, or else of great age and worn threadbare, at which he himself has to do a good share of the laughing. ”

“ So Tom went into the house, got a pretty shoe with a silver buckle to it that belonged to the servant maid and ran across a field till he got ahead of the butcher. He threw the shoe into the middle of the highway and hid behind a hedge. The butcher came riding along with the calf before him.
“Hey!” he said, “there’s a fine lady’s shoe. If it wasn’t that this calf makes it a great trouble to get off and on I’d alight and pick the shoe up. But after all what is the use of one shoe without its neighbor?” ”

“ To really see and know New England one must leave the railroads and take time for a long tramp or drive. Railroads are only intended to link together the cities and larger towns, and they seek the level and monotonous for their routes, and pursue always as straight and prosaic a course as circumstances will admit. The view from the windows of ragged banks of earth or rock, where a path has been cut through a hill, or of the sandy embankments, where a hollow has been filled, and of pastures, swamps, and stumpy, brushy acres, where the timber has lately been cut off, are often dismal. ”

“ The ant guided them to a group of tumble-down houses and showed them a pit which the brothers entered. There they found the money which had been stolen from them, and off they went with it to the seashore. The whale came to speak with them, and was rejoiced to learn what Time had said.
While they were talking with the whale, they saw the robbers coming, armed to the teeth.
“Alas, alas!” they cried, “now we are lost.”
“Fear not,” the whale said. “I can save you. Get on my back and I will carry you to a place of safety.” ”

“ Life’s currents pursue a tangled course, and while we catch many strains of harmony, there are discordant notes of which we rarely get entirely out of hearing. New England is not perfect, but once to have known is always to love it, no matter how far one wanders or how fair new regions open before one’s eyes. ”

“ Blockhead Hans and the Dead Crow
83
The brothers turned round to learn what in the world he could have found.
“Simpleton!” they said, “that cracked old shoe is absolutely worthless. Are you going to take that to the princess?”
“Of course I shall,” Blockhead Hans replied, and the brothers laughed and rode along.
But the lad on the goat soon brought them to a standstill by hopping off his goat and shouting: “Hurrah! Here’s the best treasure of all!”
“What have you found now?” the brothers asked.
“Oh! something more for the princess,” he said. “How pleased she will be!” ”

“ There is hardly any purely farming community in New England but that has decreased in population within the past fifty years. It has been the hill towns which have suffered most, but the valley towns have been affected as well. It has become the habit to account all country life dull, and the city’s superior liveliness, and the chances to earn ready money offered by stores and factories, draw away the life of even the most favored communities. New England is to-day much less a region of thrifty Yankee farmers than it is a land of busy manufacturing villages. ”

“ Nature is sometimes harsh, but she has many moods, and nowhere more than here; and if harsh sometimes, she is at other times exceeding sweet. In cold or heat, storm or sunshine, New England’s rough fields are still the true Arcadia to her sons and daughters. ”

“ This made the poor reapers think he was a very honest, generous, and genteel master.
Tom took them to an inn and gave them a hearty breakfast. “Now,” he said, “there are so many of you together, it’s quite possible that while most are honest men, some may be rogues. You will have to sleep nights together in a barn, and your best plan is to give what money you have to me to keep safe for you. ”

“ Many houses, especially those belonging to the poorer people and those outside the main village, were unpainted. On some of our old buildings may yet be seen suggestions of these former brilliant hues, though sun and storm have been softening the tones all through the years, so that only a shadowy tint of the old red or yellow still clings to the weather-worn clapboards. ”

“ The princess looked as if she thought him tiresome as she responded: “Of course. We are roasting young chickens today.”
“Where do you—um?” the youth stammered, and the reporters wrote down, “Where do you—um?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the princess said. “Take him out.”
After a while Blockhead Hans had his turn. He rode his goat right into the room and exclaimed, “Dear me, how awfully hot it is here!” ”

“ The din and crowds of the city streets grow confusing and wearisome. If he stays and gains a situation, and begins to work his way up in the world, he finds competition intense, his freedom sharply curtailed, and his lodgings narrow and in many ways lacking comfort. ”

“ The masses always follow the turn of the current whichever way it shows strong tendency to 36 run, and the boys, as they grow up, live in full expectation of leaving the home place after school-days are over. One by one they go from the valleys and the hill-tops, and merge into the busier life of the factory villages and the cities. An air of depression lingers over the regions they leave. The most vigorous life has departed, enterprise is asleep, thrift lags. ”

“ Bluebeard responded.
Poor Fatima hastened to a little turret chamber whither her sister had fled in terror and grief. “Sister Anne!” she cried, “go up to the top of the tower and see if our two brothers are coming. They promised to visit me today. If they should be in sight beckon them to come quickly.” ”

“ The world learns and gains many things as it ages. It is to be hoped that it grows better as it grows older; but even so the past has its charm, whether one of memories in which we ourselves were actors, or of story, which shows the contrast to the present which is the out-growth of that past. ”

“ Dusky shadows still linger; we cannot make objects out clearly; one or two 22 coals are glowing in the cavernous mouth of the fireplace, and a wisp of smoke steals upward and is lost in the gloomy chimney. It is late in the fall. When winter really sets in, the turned-up bed will come into use. Somebody is moving about in the bedroom, and now the door is opened and the man of the house, in frowzled head, comes from the sleeping-room. He is in his shirt-sleeves, and the heels of his big slippers clatter on the floor as he shuffles across to the fireplace. ”