840 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 3. 
Hope Farm Notes 
l*ut me on record and keep me there as 
saying that this country needs crops of 
healthy visions even more than food crops. 
Of course I know that visions and dreams 
do not pay taxes or fertilizer bills when 
saying this. The assessor chased me into 
the Held one day when I was cultivating 
corn. It was one of those clear, breezy 
days when the wind drives all the haze 
from the sky, and you look off for miles 
and see small objects distinctly. You would 
not expect this dry-measure man of values 
and figures to know a vision even in plain 
sight across the valley; but he looked over 
to the sparkle of water through the hills, 
took a long breath—and added 20 per cent 
to my assessment. I suppose 1 should have 
regarded this as a high compliment, but I 
find myself complaining that this view was 
a mere ornament, and would not pay in¬ 
terest on the increased taxes. 
•Hut you can come up here and forget U 
said my wise friend the assessor, as he shut 
his book. Unconsciously, I think he struck 
the keynote of a great truth. Visions and 
dreams teach men to forget the unhappy 
and unpleasant things which were never to 
be remembered anyway. Such things chain 
us to mental prisons. Visions come out of 
solitude, and set us free. Some men find 
balm for the mind in the city—amid a 
crowd of their fellows. At least they call 
it balm—to me it seems more like the men¬ 
tal axle grease to make the wheels go 
faster. As for me, out on the hills among 
the growing things, in touch with the great 
presence which inhabits the solitude, I can 
find the visions which drive the unhappy 
things away. 
It comes to me as I follow old Jerry 
up and down the corn rows that all through 
history there have come up, or rather down, 
from the farm men who were called to do 
what we consider “great work.’’ Moses un¬ 
willingly left his flocks and herds to lead a 
race out of bondage. David came from his 
sheep to save a kingdom. Joan of Arc 
came from the fields to serve a king. In 
all these cases it was the message of vision 
and dream which these people had uncon¬ 
sciously taken out of the solitude which 
gave them power. As the cities grow larger 
and some of the farms drop their solitude, 
we need more and more of the crop of 
visions and dreams from the silent hills. 
The assessor went on to the next farm, 
and I kept up my march behind old Jerry. 
As I came back from the north end of the 
field the little boy stood at the end of the 
row with a letter and a can of cool water. 
1 should have kept at the corn, but the 
shade under the cherry tree was very invit¬ 
ing. Still I think I should have kept at 
work had it not been for old Jerry. He 
saw my indecision and started for 'shade, 
and I weakly followed him. And then the 
little boy reminded me of my promise to 
tell him about the “gobble uns.” 
The letter he brought was from a young 
farmer who was trying to face a hard prob¬ 
lem. lie was a good farmer—one of those 
men who know by instinct when to plow 
and when to make a single stroke kill 
most weeds. Now he said that he felt im¬ 
pelled to leave his farm and go out “any¬ 
where” to do what he called “Christian 
work.” 
“For years,” he wrote, “I have fought 
against this call. I have succeeded on my 
farm, but now I feel as never before, that 
I must give up and do higher work. It 
has come to the point where I cannot rest, 
cannot have peace of mind, unless I go 
away and live in some way a missionary 
life. I am ready to go anywhere! What 
shall I do?” 
I have seen this man—a good farmer, 
but in no respect one gifted with tongue 
or appearance or evidence of power, or qual¬ 
ified to serve as a leader of his fellows. 
Just a plain, common man, a shy, humble 
citizen. With some men one could easily 
wash his mind of the whole thing by telling 
the story of the colored man who claimed 
that a vision came to him in the cornfield, 
and he saw “P. C.” printed on the sky. He 
interpreted it as “preach Christ.” and de¬ 
cided to quit farming for that purpose. His 
old minister put him through a cross-ex¬ 
amination. 
"Was it a hot day?” 
“Hottest I ever seed.” 
“Was you sweaty?” 
“I run like a river.” 
“Was you in the shade when you see 
dem letters?” 
"Yes, I was restin’ under a tree.” 
"Den what dem letters mean is plant 
corn —git back to yo’ job.” 
Hut I knew that there was something 
deeper in this plea for help. Here was 
a man who delighted in work, whose joy 
was in his farm, whose earthly ambition 
was to make that farm the best in his 
county, and then pass it on to his children 
as a king would pass on a kingdom. This 
man had really listened to the voices which 
speak in solitude. The vision he saw had 
come to John the Baptist, to Joan of Arc, 
to thousands-—to a long line of others who 
through all history have struggled with 
themselves and then come down from the 
hills with faces glorified to work and die. 
The world has been better for the faith 
and hope they brought down with them. 
But when the weeds are in the corn you 
should dream on foot, and so Jerry and I 
began our monotonous journey once more. 
As the cultivator teeth bit out the weeds, 
I fell to comparing my own poor work 
with that of my friend the missionary. It 
was doubtful if I could bring myself to 
give up my farm and home and go out 
wandering “anywhere.” Life is too quiet 
and sweet among the hills, and the scars of 
the old city combat sting at the thought 
of facing it once more. I see from my 
hills the peace and calm that the world 
needs, yet I feel in my heart that I lack 
the power which could drive me to town 
or city to tell men so that they would 
understand. My friend the missionary loves 
his farm even more than I do, yet he is 
willing to leave it and go anywhere. I fear 
I am not. Here is a better man than I am. 
Or shall I say one with a greater blessing, 
since he has somehow found a stronger 
source of courage and power. What could 
1 do but write and tell him I envied him 
his opportunity? 
My cornfield has some size, and on a 
hot day, with much to think about, 1 let 
old Jerry make the pace and follow him. 
He is the better partner of the team, per¬ 
haps because he has no dreams or visions 
except those which have headquarters in 
fhe oat bin. Cultivating corn is somewhat 
like traveling through a new country. The 
corn is up to your head. You enter the 
row and are lost to sight amid a forest 
of waving green leaves. You walk straight 
ahead, always wondering what you will 
find at the other end—out by the fence. 
As I came back along the row, I knew 
by the way the old horse cocked his cars 
that I should find some one on the stone 
wall. Sure enough, as we burst through 
the green alley, there was my friend the 
old minister waiting for me. He has a 
way of carrying his pulpit with him out to 
the fields where people work or into the 
‘houses where they have time for thought. 
When I saw that round face and spectacles, 
set in its frame of white hair, I felt that 
here I was to find an answer to the prob¬ 
lem. 
For this man in his humble way had also 
listened to the voices and followed them 
"anywhere.” Capable in his youth of do¬ 
ing what the world calls great tilings, my 
old friend had been content with what 
this same world calls small and humble 
things. In his little parish among the hills, 
amid hard, unresponsive people, this man 
had toiled on, willing to go "anywhere.” 
lie had seen the white stones in the grave¬ 
yard double in number. If he ever had 
eloquence, he lost it long ago for a kindly, 
matter-of-fact monologue which passed as a 
sermon. Surely here was a man who would 
know where one gets who travels the road 
to “anywhere” ; and sitting on the stone 
wall beside him, I told him of my friend 
the missionary. To my surprise the kindly 
face clouded a little at the story. He looked 
over his spectacles off across the hills as the 
assessor had done, but it did not make him 
forget—it brought memories to mind. 
“Do you remember what I had for my 
text last Sunday night?” 
I was obliged to confess that I did not 
know. 
"It was from the Seventy-second Psalm; 
‘There shall be an handful of corn in the 
earth upon the top of the mountains. The 
fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon and 
they of the city shall flourish like grass of 
the earth.’ That man ought to ask himself 
a few questions: 
“Does he really want to go—will he go 
‘anywhere ?’ 
“Does he feel that he has the courage and 
the ability to do the work? 
"Do his friends think lie has such ability? 
“Would he be willing to stay right where 
he is in his own town and do his Christian 
work there—where he is known? 
"This last one is the final test. The 
chances are that this man wants to get off 
where nobody knows him and begin. Let 
him stay right on his own farm and in his 
own home, among his neighbors and friends, 
and act the missionary first of all. You 
will find that in some way he has lost 
power over those who live near him. Let 
him stay at home and gain this power back 
before he goes away. He's got the wrong 
idea of anywhere. It means right under 
your own feet first of all." 
I have said v as you know, that the old 
minister has lost eloquence and oratory, yet 
there was a convincing appeal in what he 
said that thrilled me. 
"I quoted my text because it points out 
what 1 mean. It was the handful of corn 
on the mountain top that wrought the mira¬ 
cle. That was because it was in an unex¬ 
pected place. No man could do it unless he 
had a giant’s faith. The poorest and most 
barren thing about a man’s life is his own 
spiritual record. When the average man 
starts to do spiritual work, In* wants to get as 
far as possible away from the people who 
know him best. Yet the ‘handful of corn on 
the mountain,’ the miracle, means going 
right where you have lost your record and 
gaining power to find it once more. The 
man who does that is a true missionary. 
He can do anything.” 
And my friend, the old minister, is right. 
Y’ou and I may think we can do great things 
at influencing strangers. I might talk 
farming to people in the next township, 
but in the presence of my neighbors I 
would sooner discuss the weather. I know 
the world needs missionaries—as it has al¬ 
ways needed them-—men and women with 
dreams and visions of better things. This 
country cannot endure unless the cities can 
find recruits of flesh and blood from the 
hills, and sentiment and hope from the 
silent places. But the men who are to 
carry this hope must, as my friend the old 
minister says, live down their own record 
and thus find power to rise above it. I 
fell to thinking of that opening stanza in 
“In Memoriam.” 
“I hold it truth with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones 
That men may rise on stepping stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things.” 
I take it that is the first job for the 
missionary whether he be among the hills 
or amid the brick and stone, h. w. c. 
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