38 
January 9, 
THE KURAIv NEW-YOKKEH 
Hope Farm Notes 
T HIS would be a poor place for one of 
those unhappy people who consider 
it their duty to tell little children that 
Santa Claus is a fraud or a fake. It 
is Christmas Eve, and as I sit before 
my open fire I can see 10 stockings care¬ 
fully hung upon doorknobs, backs of 
chairs and tables. Each one has a card 
tied to it with “Merry Christmas, Santa 
Claus,” in childish letters—and a name 
so that there be no mistake about the 
identity. Outside the mercury has near¬ 
ly reached zero. There is a thin feather 
of snow on the ground, and a sparkle and 
crinkle in the air. Inside the fire is 
roaring. The stump and root of an old 
peach tree acts as back log, and the 
brush and small sticks are making it 
glow. There is a row of red apples 
along the top of the fireplace and a pan 
of baked fruit down cellar. No doubt 
we could find a doughnut or two if we 
hunted for them. Little Redhead and I 
have been out to look at the Red hens. 
We go the rounds every night, to see 
that all is tight and the feed hoppers are 
full. In one house the Leghorns flutter 
and shy. There are two nervous wrecks 
that jump off the roost and run blindly 
about when we come, but the Reds wel¬ 
come us. These birds seem to know that 
we are looking to them for future profit 
and reputation. So they settle comfort¬ 
ably on their roost and merely turn a 
wise eye in our direction. Our 30 odd 
Reds presented us with 12 eggs today— 
a very acceptable Christmas present. As 
part of our rounds we look at the two fat 
puppies in the little brooder house. Iheir 
mother, little Airedale, keeps a watchful 
eye on them as they roll out to see us. 
She seems to feel that it is a good Christ¬ 
mas gift that her children resemble their 
father as little as possible. Now the 
children have gone off to bed. The little 
girls fell asleep quite sure that they 
heard distant sleighbells—the boys are 
older and getting wiser with their years. 
Here I am with my fire and the stock¬ 
ings and many- Christmas thoughts. La¬ 
ter on Santa Claus will surely appear. 
I expect her to have some gray in her 
hair. I imagine she will wear spectacles, 
and that she will be followed by her 
daughters carrying great bundles that 
have been hidden in closets and secret 
places for days. She will fill those stock¬ 
ings as if she were packing trunks, and 
then after a lingering talk before the fire 
Santa Claus and her aides will be as 
sleepy as ordinary mortals. 1 be lights 
will slowly go out, and through the long 
night Hope Farm will glisten in the 
crisp starlight of Christmas Eve. 
“Why talk of all this when Christmas 
is now a back number? Give us some¬ 
thing new.” The new is ever a varia¬ 
tion of the old. I think we may well 
carry a little of the Christmas spirit into 
every day of the year. One trouble with 
this old world is that we fail to do this, 
and thus make charity and good will like 
our best clothes or like church behavior— 
things to get off as quickly as possible 
in everyday work. 
This would be no place for the Anti- 
Santa Claus Club tonight They should 
keep away from children and fortify 
themselves with more serious things. I 
have a few books on my shelves which 
will suit them well at Christmas Eve. On 
its title alone, “The Survival of the 
Unlike” should suit them. I suggest 
“Profit and Loss in Man,” “The Bitter 
Cry of the Children,” by John Spargo, 
and a few others. I have had some of 
these Anti-Santa Claus people argue with 
me, but somehow their arguments fell 
rather flat, and as I get older and feel 
more and more the need of that hopeful 
spirit which the child alone can give, I 
think more and more of Santa Claus 
and what he stands for. If you and I 
would make up our minds to play Santa 
Claus to some brother in need every day 
in the year, this world would begin to 
glow, and we should feel the result in 
every department of life. 
I went to the city today, and on every 
hand saw the Santa Claus spirit mani¬ 
fested. It was a cold, blustering day. 
On one long, windy street an Italian 
push-cart peddler had his little wagon 
filled with Christmas post cards. There 
is a good sale for such things at this 
season. There came a sudden fierce gust 
of wind from a corner, and the cards rose 
from the wagon like a flock of birds and 
went whirling down the street. There 
was this man’s entire capital vanishing at 
a puff of wind. In an instant at least 
20 men ran into the street to help pick 
up the cards. They ran all the way from 
a ragged newsboy to a man in fur coat 
and high hat. They picked up every 
card in sight and put them on the push 
cart. Some had blown far away and 
the fur-coated man handed over a coin 
to pay for them. Then they all separated 
and each went his own way, carrying a 
little oil stove inside of him, for each 
felt that he had helped a little by play¬ 
ing Santa Claus. 
All along the streets through the bit¬ 
ter cold stood the Salvation Army work¬ 
ers. A kettle is hung from a tripod and 
beside it stands a girl wearing a bright 
red cloak. She rings a bell all day long 
to attract attention, and people who 
have money to give drop it into the kettle. 
These girls are not always very well fed, 
and it is no joke to stand hour after hour 
in the biting cold beside that kettle. At 
noon I saw one of them almost blue with 
cold still ringing her bell and stamping 
her feet, though there was a very poor 
collection of small coins. How long did 
it take to play Santa Claus right there, 
and bring out a mug of hot coffee and 
a couple of sandwiches? This girl, on 
her cold, windy corner, was as brave 
a soldier in a worthy cause as any of 
these in the European trenches. If, 
while she was eating this lunch, some 
handsomely dressed woman could have 
taken her bell and rung it by the kettle 
there would have been a fine crop of 
coins. Here we have what I call play¬ 
ing Santa Claus again. A great crowd 
of people had poured into the city, and 
at night they came out again—tired and 
loaded down with bundles, but good-na¬ 
tured. The trains were delayed and 
there was a jam of humanity before the 
train gates. It seemed impossible to 
work through. I had a bunch of roses 
among other things, but no one cared for 
flowers in such a crush. I did not see 
how that mass of humanity could give 
way an inch. Finally there came a lame 
man wheeling a baby carriage. It was 
a new one, of full size and well filled 
with packages. It seemed to me a most 
appropriate Christmas present for some 
one, but imagine a baby carriage in such 
a throng of belated and hungry people. 
But a strange thing happened right there. 
Do you not know that years ago wise 
men went hunting for signs of a little 
child? Here was the anniversary of 
that search and every one of those tired 
and hungry people had in the heart at 
that moment something of the beautiful 
spirit which has come down through all 
these long years. That crowd did the 
impossible. It separated and made a 
wide passage through which the lame 
man walked, pushing his baby carriage 
ahead of him. lie did not look to me 
like a man who knew he had performed 
a miracle—just a plain ordinary citizen 
who had the appearance of one who 
knew he had spent more than he could 
really afford on presents for his family. 
I will guarantee that he will wear the 
old suit a little longer and economize on 
his dinner for some weeks to make up 
for the presents in that baby carriage. 
No member of the Anti-Santa Claus Club 
was this, but old Santa himself, limp¬ 
ing on his bad leg unconsciously perform¬ 
ing a miracle and bringing the hearts 
of that tired and belated crowd back to 
the greatest thing in life—the joy and 
glory of childhood. 
Now what I am getting at is the old 
story. Life is pretty much what we 
make it. As I write this—all over the 
land men and women in lonely farm¬ 
houses are sitting by the fire or the stove 
—thinking, thinking—mainly of what lies 
back in the past. In some of those 
houses there are little children asleep as 
mine are in the beautiful trust of child¬ 
hood. In other homes there are memories 
of children—many of whom have grown 
up and gone out to take part in the 
world’s battle. Then there are childless 
homes—denied the joy and sunshine of 
the rich, happy child life. It is a 
strange thing, but as I sit here with no 
light but that from the blazing fire I 
know that we are all thinking of much 
the same thing—the great curious mys¬ 
tery of life. What does it all mean that 
we toil and struggle on in our blunder¬ 
ing way and see at every turn how much 
better the world would be if men and I 
women would, 3G5 days’ in the year, try 
to treat each other as we treat our chil¬ 
dren at Christmas? Having tried battle 
and bluff and strong-arm methods for 
years here we come into the solitude of 
Christmas Eve before the fire, and are 
forced to admit in our hearts that the 
world’s rights are not won by fighting 
and fraud. If all men and women would 
play Santa Claus every day in the year 
as I have seen them do it this day the 
world would get up and dance for joy. 
Undeserved poverty would be unknown, 
the common people would have their 
rights and a great share of the sorrow 
and envying in the world would be wiped 
out. You good people who sit by the fire 
in those farmhouses tonight will, if you 
think it out fully, come to this conclu¬ 
sion. You may have children about you 
or only memories or imaginings to take 
their places. But out of those children 
must come your hope for the future. 
This world will respond to you and fill 
your life just as you treat your neigh¬ 
bors (in the large sense of humanity) 
with the spirit of Santa Claus which you 
show to your children. But here comes 
Santa Claus herself—perhaps I am pre¬ 
judiced, but as she turns up the light 
it seems as if Christmas has brought 
back some of the pink of 25 years ago. 
H. W. C. 
Fall Plowing of Orchards. 
A PROPOS to my article I wish to 
sound a note of warning. Don’t 
Fall-plow a valuable orchard because 
some one else has done so. There are 
many old fruit growers with the wisdom 
and experience of years to back them, 
who are decidedly opposed to this prac¬ 
tice. For my own part I have never seen 
any direct evidence to prove that Fall 
plowing injures fruit trees or increases 
the liability to or extent of Winter in¬ 
jury. Five of the old trees in the block 
referred to died this year. I think with¬ 
out question Winter injury was the im¬ 
mediate cause, but back of that are a 
number of conditions that made those 
trees weak and less resistant than the 
others. No one can lay down rules or 
systems for farming. Each man must 
work that out for himself using all the 
information and experience available, and 
as the farmer’s knowledge and ability to 
think grow so will his management grow 
and change. Some practices we know 
are good or bad, but Fall plowing orch¬ 
ards I think is still an open question. 
E. W. MITCHELL. 
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