26 An American Fruit-Farm 



makes him a churl, a slave. Shakespeare's farm- 

 ers are all boors, the butt of ridicule, as are his 

 laborers of any calling. Only in the modern novel 

 of **real life" is the farmer the hero of the story. 

 Adam Bede has a soul as well as a jack-plane, and 

 passions quite as picturesque as Scott's Antiquary. 

 But the farmer has at last got into literature, and 

 has come to stay. American life has compelled 

 recognition of his rights and privileges as a man. 

 Democracy runs to farmers as theocracy to priests. 

 Ours began as a nation of farmers. 



** By the low bridge that arched the flood, 

 Their flags to April's breeze unfurled; 

 Here the embattled farmers stood 



And fired the shot heard round the world." 



The arrow-maker, the sword-maker, the maker 

 of the war-harness, the gun-maker, the ship- 

 builder, the money-maker, — ^why not the food- 

 maker? No Virgil or Shakespeare hereafter will 

 make the farmer the boor and butt of his story. 

 Indeed the echoes of Mantua and Abbotsford now 

 print themselves in taking-titles of new novels 

 which bring swiftly to mind green orchard boughs, 

 sweeping vines, purpling fruit, and the stress and 

 storm of life on the farm. This life is made the foil 

 to the life of the city, that we may know the 

 commonplace of commonplaces: whether in the 

 bank, in the White House, or on the farm, human 

 nature is quite the same. A man's a man whether 

 under an apple tree or over the roof of a sky- 



