638 
March 27, 1920 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
“No! The heart that has truly loved never 
forgets, 
But as truly loves on to life's close." , 
Mv friend, Prof. Standisb.'came to that 
quotation from Tom Moore’s song, and 
threw his magazine on the table in dis¬ 
gust. . 
“A shame," he said, “to spoil an excel¬ 
lent essay by introducing the foolish sen¬ 
timent of a half-insane poet. 1 here ought 
to be a law to prevent the use of such 
folly. It ruins all scientific development. 
1 was spending the night with the pro¬ 
fessor and his family, and the roaring 
storm outside made it impossible for me 
to escape. The professor, a big, black- 
bearded man, stood up before the lire 
with one hand behind him to argue Ins 
point. 11 is stern-faced wife looked over 
her spectacles at me as if to say: 
• Don’t you dare to contradict this 
great man !” 
Two “scientific” children with great 
bulging foreheads and pasty slun looked 
curiously at me through their big horn 
spectacles. ,, . 
“Then you do not believe in love at 
first sight’,” I ventured. 
“No, the idea is rot of the most ad¬ 
vanced stage. No such thing! A great 
French scientist lias shown that human 
attachments are a matter of odor. Love 
is a matter of the nose! 1 here may be 
some little electric action or some phy- 
ical force not yet discovered, but there is 
no such thing as ‘twin souls, divine 
choice’ and all that rot. Science proves 
it as foi.ows.” . ... „ 
He launched oft into a terrible volley 
of words which blew all the opposition 
out of me. Happily, some one called him 
to the telephone on another matter and 
switched him away. 
1 sat there sternly regarded by Airs. 
Professor, feeling that I must do some¬ 
thing to redeem myself. I ran over my 
mental attainments, but all I could think 
of was story-telling, so I proposed telling 
one of those scientific boys. I even tried 
to lift one of them on my knee, as I would 
one of my own children, but this one 
struggled away from me like a rabbit. 
1 did not imagine he had so much life. 
"Wliat is the nature of this story: 
asked Mrs. Professor. 
1 admitted with a sense of shame that 
it would be about some bad boys who 
tricked the minister’s horse and thereby 
wrought a great thing. 
“You need not repeat it. My sons 
have no knowledge of bad boys or nun- 
isters, and I do not* wish their minds 
to absorb such matters!” 
I was properly rebuked, and I confess 
that I soon became sleepy and said good 
night. Iu bed, with the wind howling 
and shaking the windows of this house 
of science, I could not sleep and lay there 
thinking of Tom .Moore’s poem—and bad 
boys! 
* * # * * 
Pack in the old Yankee town the Rev. 
Robert Preston preached in the big white 
church. He lived in the little parsonage 
behind the horse sheds. To those of us 
who ranked as bad boys he was a stern 
tyrant, but in reality he was a big, ten¬ 
der-hearted man just at the age when 
the first streaks of gray come creeping 
into a black mane of hair. Once I was 
called up before him for a lecture, and as 
I came trembling into his study I found 
him sitting looking at a faded old “tin¬ 
type.” 1 saw it was the picture of a 
girl, and the minister’s face seemed like 
a great flame to me. He had to put that 
flame out and put on a scowl before he 
could lecture me properly, and I never 
thought he did a good job. There were 
only two things about the minister that 
people could criticise. He wasn’t mar¬ 
ried. and he would keep that half-blind 
old white horse running about the neigh¬ 
borhood ! No one ever learned the min¬ 
ister’s reason for the first defect. We 
had some women in our town who were 
star performers at “finding out” about 
things, but they were bafflled. The min¬ 
ister had some reason—so has every bach¬ 
elor—but it. was hidden far down under 
the years. One day Mary Drake, who 
was to be married in 10 days, went along 
the road singing: 
“.Vo; the heart that lias truly loved never 
forgets. 
But as truly lores on to life's close!" 
The minister heard her and sat in his 
study nodding his head in approval. 
Then he reached into the place where he 
kept his sermons and pulled out the tin¬ 
type. It. was right there, evidently, that 
I came in for my lecture. That ought to 
have given the women a tip, but they did 
not get it. somehow. As for the old 
white horse, .Tack, the minister freely 
stated that he had raised Jack from a 
colt, and that the old fellow should never 
suffer or be sold. So old Jack wandered 
about the village as he pleased. He 
tramped down gardens, got into clover 
fields, upset beehives and became a gen¬ 
eral nuisance. He was “the minister’s 
horse,” and that alone saved him from 
being shot or clubbed. Old Deacon Reed 
came and protested, but the minister 
only said Jack was the last of his old 
friends, and he even quoted those two 
lines of Tom Moore. The good deacon 
had lost his wife years before, and when 
the minister came to "as truly loves on 
to life’s close” the old man wiped his 
spectacles and sat looking off to the river 
as it disappeared around the hill. And 
the next day. when Jack got into the 
deacon’s garden, the old man did pot 
kick him, but led the poor brute into the 
barn and gave him some oats. 
J* At sK * ❖ 
The girls soon found that there was 
no use trying to correct the minister’s 
first fault, and they gave it.up. The 
farmers were convinced that nothing short 
of death would ever cure old Jack. The 
bad boys of the neighborhood, being with¬ 
out sentiment, and having only that brand 
of reverence which is sealed iu with 
a stick, laid a plan to get rid of the white 
horse. Now I think all the old-time 
recipes for making “a good little boy” 
were tried on me. We were forced to 
read about “Sanford and Merton,” 
“Rollo” and various other abnormally 
good children. 4 They were too good to 
he true, and in the plain common sense 
of childhood we knew it. I shall always 
believe that "Rollo” drove me to reading 
“dime novels” out in the hole I dug in 
the haymow. From one of these novels 
a certain bad boy (I will not mention 
him before my children) got the plan for 
disposing of old Jack. We cut a big 
bunch of clover in Deacon Drake’s field 
and tied it into a secure bundle. Then 
we caught old .Tack and fastened a long, 
stout stick along the upper part of his 
neck where the mane grows. It was long 
enough to reach out beyond his head. We 
tied a good string to the end of this stick 
and tied the clover to the string. It 
hung about three inches in front of .Tack]s 
nose. The more he reached out for it 
the more it swung away from him. lie 
never could reach it, but the smell of it 
was ever in his nostrils, leading him on. 
Then we headed the old horse south and 
started him. I can see him yet stepping, 
stepping down the dusty road, reaching 
out for the clover and never touching it. 
yet still walking on and on after the im¬ 
possible. We saw the old horse disappear 
over the hill, still stepping along after 
the clover. As a bad boy, this seemed 
to me the most laughable thing I had 
ever seen. As a man. I have seen hu¬ 
man beings chasing after the impossible 
just as old Jack followed the swinging 
clover. Long years ago all this foolish 
travel ceased to be laughable. It has 
come to seem like a tragedy—to fill the 
eyes with tears. 
* * * # * 
There are 5.280 feet in a mile, and 
old Jack covered perhaps two feet at one 
step. He kept on for several hours with¬ 
out knowing that the clover never came 
any nearer. Somehow he switched off 
the main road and traveled along a dusty 
highway, which led over the hills to a 
little village. He shuffled along in the 
dust, still reaching out for the clover. A 
woman sitting on the porch of a pleasant 
farmhouse looked up the road and saw 
an old white horse coining up the hill 
This woman had come up out of the 
weary schoolroom in the great town for 
rest and reflection. She needed the rest 
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