370 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 21, 1920 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
This is the one night of the year for 
reading “Snow Bound." Every man with 
New England blood in his veins should 
read Whittier’s poem at least once a year. 
That becomes as much of a habit as eat¬ 
ing baked beans and fishballs. For two 
days now the storm has roared over our 
hills and shut us in. It must have been 
on just such a night as this that Emerson 
wrote: 
“The sled and traveler stopped; the 
courier’s feet 
Delayed; all friends shut out, the house¬ 
mates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.” 
Of course, Emerson lived at a time 
when the telephone and the electric light 
and the steam-heated house were dreams 
too obscure even for his great mind to 
comprehend. So, in spite of this fearful 
storm, the strong arm of the electric cur¬ 
rent still reaches into our house, and 
while the telephone is slow, we can get 
our message through, after a fashion. 
But we are shut in. The car and the 
truck are useless tonight. The horses 
stamp contentedly in the barn—not 
troubling about the head-high drifts which 
are piled along the roadway. A ban 
night for a fire or for a hurry call for 
the doctor; but why worry about that as 
we sit here before the fire? 
* * * * * 
I got my copy of “Snow Bound” in 
1872. and 1 have read the poem at least 
once each year since, and I have carried 
it all over the country with me. It is a 
little shabby now, but somehow that is 
the way I like to see old friends: 
“Shut in from all the world without 
We sat the clean winged hearth about, 
Content to let the north wind roar 
In bafflled rage at pane and door, 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat. 
***** 
Between the andirons straddling feet 
The mug of cider simmered low, 
The apples sputtered in a row 
And close at hand the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October’s wood. 
***** 
What matter how the night behaved? 
What matter how the north wind raved? 
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
Could quench our hearth fire’s ruddy 
glow.” 
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There is no finer picture of the old- 
time Northern farm home, and we Yan¬ 
kees are bound to think that with all her 
faults New England did in those days 
set the world an example of what a farm 
home ought to be. So I lay aside the 
book and look about me to see how close 
New Jersey can come on this fearful night 
to matching this old-time picture. 
* * * * * 
Here we are before the fire. Great 
logs of apple wood are blazing up into 
the black chimney. In Whittier’s day 
the open fire produced all the light, but 
here we have our electric light blazing, 
and I think as I sit here how miles away 
the great engineers are working to send 
the current far up among the lonely hills 
to our home. For supper we had a thick 
tomato soup, a big platter of cornmeal 
mush—the grain ground in our little 
grinder—pot cheese, entire wheat bread 
and butter, baked apples and all the milk 
we could drink. Just run that over and 
see if it does not furnish as fine a bal¬ 
anced ration and as good a lot of vita- 
mines as any $2 dinner in New York— 
and nearly 80 per cent of it was produced 
on this farm. Now the girls have washed 
the dishes and planned breakfast, and 
here we are. Mother sits in the first 
choice of seats before the fire. That is 
where she belongs. She is mending a 
pair of stockings, and as her fingers fly, 
no doubt thinking of those warmer days 
back in Mississippi. My daughter has 
just put a new record into her Victrola. 
The music comes softly to us—“Juanita.” 
“Soft o’er the fountain 
Lingering falls the Southern moon.” 
I wonder what Whittier’s folks would 
have said to that! Two of the little girls 
are looking over some music, trying to 
get the air in “I dreamt that I dwelt in 
marble halls!” There is no “frost line” 
in this house for the fire to drive back, 
for there is a good hot-water radiator in 
the corner. The pipe from the spring 
seems to have frozen, but the faithful old 
windmill, standing over the well at the 
barn, has stretched out its arms to catch 
this roaring gale and make it carry the 
water up to the tank. Thomas and three 
of the boys are playing parchesi, while 
the rest of the company gives them all 
advice about playing from time to time. 
I have a big chair by the corner of the 
fireplace—where grandfather is supposed 
to sit—and little Rose is curled up on 
my lap eating an apple. I wish you were 
here. We could easily make Toom for 
you right in front of the fire, and we 
would surely call on you for a new story. 
***** 
The wind is surely howling on the out¬ 
side. As we sit here in comfort there 
comes an eager, pitiful face at the window 
pleading to be taken in. No, it is not the 
old story of the wayward child coming 
back to the lights of home. The nearest 
we can come to that at Hope Farm is the 
black cat with the dash of white at her 
face and throat. She and her tribe are 
expected to stay at the barn and catch 
rats, but there she is out in the cold look¬ 
ing in at the window. Mother is as stern 
as a Spartan mother when it comes to 
cats in the house. She will not have them 
there. But, after all. they are Hope 
Farm folks, and the little girls plead so 
hard that the good lady looks the other 
way when the baby opens the door. In 
comes the black cat and, though they were 
not invited, three of her brothers and sis¬ 
ters run in with her! So now I shall sit 
with little Rose on my lap, while on her lap 
is a cushion on which the white-faced 
kitty purrs contentedly. In the original 
“Snow Bound” the mug of cider simmered 
between the andirons. No hot drinks for 
us. A little -of that cold pasteurized ap¬ 
ple juice goes well. We see no use in 
cooking apples before the lire. There is 
that big basket of Baldwins by the table. 
Help yourself—we like them cold. 
Cherry-top was ahead in the game, but 
Thomas has just taken his leading “man” 
and sent him back to the starting point. 
The boy is a good sport. He takes a big 
bite out of a fresh Baldwin and goes 
after them again. The nearest we can 
come to “nuts from brown October’s wood” 
is a big bag of roasted peanuts. We 
have all been eating them and tin-owing 
the hulls at the fire. They have accumu¬ 
lated so that Mother’s idea of neatness 
compels her to get up and brush them all 
into the blaze. I did not tell you that 
we are starting up our little Florida farm 
again. Jack will grow a crop of sugar 
cane and peanuts. 
***** 
And so, here in New Jersey, as well as 
in old-time New England, we care not 
how the wind blows or how the storm 
roars. This is home, and we are satis¬ 
fied with it—all of us, from the white¬ 
faced kitty up to the Hope Farm man. 
We have all worked to make this home. 
It is a co-operative affair. None of us 
could be called rich or great, yet nothing 
could ever buy what we see in our big 
fire. Every now and then Mother looks 
up from her work and glances across the 
room at me with a smile. I know what 
she has in mind. Some of us rise to the 
power of animals in their ability to com¬ 
municate thought without words. Life 
has been very much of a fight with us. 
but it seems worth while as we look at 
this big room full of eager young people, 
content and happy with the simple things 
of life. As little Rose snuggles up closer 
to me and pulls the kitty with her I be¬ 
gin to think of some of the complaining 
fault-findin~ people I know. I do know 
some star performers at the job of pitying 
themselves and magnifying their own 
troubles. On a night like this I will 
wager an apple that they are pouring out 
the gloom and trouble like a man tipping 
over a barrel of cold water. It’s their 
rheumatism or their debts or the Admin¬ 
istration or the Republican party, or 
something else that they hold responsible 
for their troubles. I wish I could have 
some of those fellows here tonight, and 
also some of you folks who know the joy 
of looking on the bright side. We would 
do our best to rub some of the gloom out 
of them. I will guarantee that any one 
of us could, if we wanted to, tell the truth 
about our own troubles so that these 
gloomy individuals would look like 
“pikers” in their poor little self-pity! I 
would like to read extracts from two new 
books to them. One is “A Labrador Doc¬ 
tor,” by W. T. Grenfell; the other, “The 
Great Hunger,” by Johan Bojer. 
***** 
I have just been reading these books, 
and I shall read them over again. Dr. 
Grenfell has given his life to service in 
the far North among the fishermen of 
Labrador. A man of his ability could 
easily have gained fame and wealth by 
practicing his profession in some great 
city. He went where he was most needed 
—into the cold, lonely places where hu¬ 
manity hungers and suffers for help. It 
has always seemed to me just about the 
noblest tiling in life for a man of great 
natural ability to gain what science and 
education can give him and carry that 
great gift out to those who need it most. 
Grenfell did that, and this modest story 
of his life is wonderful to any one who 
can get the message. I have always 
thought that the greatest teachers and 
preachers and wise men generally are not 
so much needed in the big cities as in the 
lonely country places. The city owes all 
it has in men and money to the country, 
but it will seldom acknowledge the gift. 
The city itself is able to offer as a gift 
knowledge, science and training. Yet 
those who receive this gift desire for the 
most part to remain in the city, when 
they should carry their gift out into the 
lonely and hard places where the city 
must finally go for strength. The storm 
seems hard tonight, but it is a mere 
zephyr to the Winters which Dr. Gren¬ 
fell’s people endure. I wish I could t<*ll 
you some of the wonderful things which 
have happened in that lonely land. At 
one place the doctor found a girl dying 
of typhoid. There was no way of saving 
her, and as soon as she was buried it was 
necessary to burn the rude bunk and the 
straw in which she lay. They carried it 
to the top of a hill and built a fire. For 
several days one of the fishing boats had 
been lost at sea in the fog, and had been 
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