1444 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 11, 1920 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
I have been' talking of late about co¬ 
operation and the need of working to¬ 
gether if we are to put farming where it 
should be as a business. Of course that 
is good theory—the practice is much more 
difficult. My friend, Benjamin Grundy, 
comes forward to throw a barrel of very 
cold water on any such scheme, and then 
follows with a wet blanket. Benjamin 
says farmers will never really combine. 
You may get them to join the Grange or 
the Farm Bureau or some other organi¬ 
zation, but they will still hang to their 
old ideas of individual rights and refuse 
to give them up. Grundy says farmers 
inherit prejudice and spite as they do the 
color of their hair of the shape of their 
nose, and that it grows up like a spite 
fence around each farm or home. Thus 
they may get together on some rather 
superficial things, but not on the essential 
things—which demand sacrifice and un¬ 
selfish work. 
Benjamin is sour and discouraged. He 
is 55 year’s old, and thinks he has tried 
hard to organize and help farmers. They 
have not responded as he thinks they 
should have done, and so he has foolishly 
quit trying. There are too many men like 
Grundy, who think the world may be 
cured of some long-standing disease by a 
surgical operation or some dose of medi¬ 
cine. If that were true, the evil and 
wrong in the world should have been 
cured by the Great War. That, however, 
has not happened—in fact, we are now 
facing worse troubles than we had before 
the war. You cannot make people good 
or sensible by law, and no one can in¬ 
crease the good in the world without add¬ 
ing a good share of it from his own life! 
$ $ $ $ * 
I know all about this prejudice and 
spite. You will find more or less of it 
in every community. The meanest thing 
on earth is a family feud, and the next 
meanest is a senseless quarrel between 
neighbors. I knew a case of a spite fence. 
Two men lived side by side in a town. 
Both took light and power from the same 
electric wire, both drew water from the 
same pipe. The soil of their gardens was 
just alike, and no chemist could detect 
any difference between the air they 
breathed. Yet these two men fell out and 
developed a bitter quarrel. Some said it 
started over a hen or a dog; others said 
it was a “women’s quarrel.” I think it 
was a fool’s quarrel, as such things usually 
are. At any rate, it got so bad that one 
man refused even to look at his neighbor’s 
house. So he started a “spite fence”, just 
inside his boundary line. He built it 10 
feet, then 20 feet, and finally as high as 
the two houses. And he thought he had 
the support of his entire family. What 
made him do such a foolish thing? Prob¬ 
ably some 1,000 years or more ago one 
of his ancestors fell out with a neighbor 
over some simple thing, and the two 
fought with clubs , and stones and threw 
mud at each other’s hut. It must have 
been the stirring of some dormant cell in 
this modern man’s brain which prompted 
him to shut the sun and air away from 
his neighbor’s house. He felt proud of 
his job, and when the fence was finally 
completed he went out one evening to 
inspect it. At one place he found a loose 
board. Some one had knocked out the 
nails and lightly tacked the board on so 
it was easily removed. The old man grew 
suspicious and hid behind a tree in his 
yard to see what would follow. After 
awhile he saw a dark shadow appear from 
his neighbor’s house, come to the fence 
and gently pull off the board. Then a 
figure in white flitted through the moon¬ 
light from his own house and joined the 
other figure in the shadows. And the old 
man rushed upon them in triumph.. What 
do vou suppose he found? His only 
daughter—the pride of his heart—had 
come out to meet the only son of his hated 
neighbor. They were courting each other 
through that spite fence! .You see, there 
never was a barrier of prejudice and hate 
so spiteful or so high that love cannot and 
will not find its way through,, and. there 
is nothing else that can do it without 
leaving both families in ruin. And so 
when Benjamin Grundy puts on his long 
face and says the situation is hopeless I 
laugh at him. for my children at least are 
not to inherit spite and prejudice against 
any neighbor or against any class. They 
will be able to co-operate for any worthy 
purpose if I can have any influence upon 
their future. A legacy of that sort is the 
best thing we can leave our children. We 
may go aas far as we can along the road, 
and let the children go further. 
***** 
As for these family feuds that you read 
about, they are often more fancied than 
real. We read most about them in books 
or stories, and probably every story writer 
will tell you that when he starts out to 
develop a plot he bends many incidents 
out of their true course to suit his pur¬ 
pose. I can tell you about one bloody 
family feud which will illustrate the dif¬ 
ference between fact and imagination. A 
friend of mine, who is a deaf man, had 
this experience. He spent the night with 
a family in the Keutueky mountains. Like 
most other Northern men, my friend had 
heard about feuds and family warfare 
until he thought it was a common thing 
to exchange gunshots with a neighbor be¬ 
fore breakfast. As night came on it was 
evident to our deaf friend that something 
unusual and solemn was on hand. He 
got just enough of the conversation to set 
him wrong. 
“They will be here soon after dark,” 
he heard the man say to his boys, “and 
we must be ready for them.” 
He saw the women shudder and look 
anxiiously inito the twilight. The men 
and boys brought out three big guns, and 
carefully loaded them, and also filled up 
two big army pistols. It seemed to my 
friend as if they were back in history 
some 150 years, when Kentucky was 
known as the “dark and bloody ground,” 
and no man knew when the enemy would 
be upon them. As soon as supper was 
eaten the women blew out the lights and 
they all sat in darkness. 
“We must take them by surprise if we 
are to get them at all,” said the farmer, 
as he clicked the lock of his gun by the 
stove. The old dog lay on a mat by the 
door Avith one eye open and his ears 
alert for the slightest sound. My friend 
says that he passed a very bad half hour. 
It is hard enough for a deaf man to feel 
himself in the presence of danger when 
it is light enough to “hear with his eyes,” 
but in this dark silence, waiting Avith 
loaded guns for the “enemy” without 
knowing Avhat or who the enemy might 
be, or why he Avas coming, was enough 
to try the stoutest nerves. This man was 
not interested in killing anyone, or in 
being killed by any stranger. The cur¬ 
tains were pulled down and there was no 
light except that from a narroAV crack at 
the stove door. This splinter of light 
brought into vieAV the old dog watching by 
the door, and the stern face of the griz¬ 
zled farmer as he sat back from the stove 
Avith that big gun laid across his knees. 
My friend says that stern, grizzled face 
brought to mind those mountain stories 
of Charles Egbert Craddock, which were 
60 popular a few years ago. If ever a 
man cursed himself for ever leaving home 
it Avas my deaf friend as he sat in that 
dark room, an unwilling actor in a family 
feud warfare! 
***** 
All of a sudden the old dog started up 
with a low growl and put his nose to the 
crack under the door. His great jaws 
were open, the lips dropped from the great 
Avhite teeth, and the stiff hair bristling 
all over his body. The enemy Avas evi¬ 
dently at the gates. The family was well 
trained in warfare. The women and girls 
did not faint or scream. They acted as 
if they could easily load the guns as the 
men folks fired. But this was not to be 
any defensive campaign. The farmer and 
his boys caught up their guns, quietly 
opened the door and stole out into the 
darkness. My deaf friend found the tAvo 
big pistols thrust into his hands, Avhile a 
big hand on his shoulder led him through 
the door outside—into the battle! The 
hand guided him for a short distance, and 
then pushed him into what seemed to be 
the corner made by a Ioav building and a 
fence. Then the owner of the hand passed 
on into the blackness! Well. I can only 
say that it is A r iolent exercise in mental 
gymnastics to be left in such black silence. 
You do not fully knoAv what it is all 
about or who you are to fight. There you 
are in the pitch darkness and utter silence 
Avith a murderous Aveapon in your hand— 
waiting for what? You imagine that 
each square yard of the thick darkness 
contains a dozen creatures eager for your 
life. Why they are there or what it is 
all about you do not know, but it is evi¬ 
dent that, on general principles, you must 
get them or they will get you. My friend 
says he seemed to have lived about 10 
years when suddenly a cloud above him 
seemed to split. It seemed as if someone 
Avas carrying the moonlight in a paper 
bag, when all at once the bag opened and 
a ray of light darted through. My friend 
found himself at what seemed the corner 
of a henhouse. Across a cleared space a 
feAV rods away three crawling things ap¬ 
peared in the grass. They were white 
Avith black shadoAvs—to the deaf man they 
seemed like the faces of three men with 
hats on, slowly crawling through the grass 
and weeds up to the back of the house. 
Then it flashed through the mind of the 
deaf man that these wretches were crawl¬ 
ing up to set the house on fire. There is 
such an incident in one of Craddock’s 
stories. Now it was not his quarrel, but 
his ancestors had fought in every war 
Avhich this nation had known. Before he 
really knew what he was doing he aimed 
one of those big pistols and pulled the 
trigger. The nearest Avhite thing threw 
itself in the air, gave a struggle and lay 
still. The other two turned, but before 
they could run those big guns spoke from 
behind a grove of trees and a hail of small 
shot swept over the ground. Then in¬ 
stantly the paper bag seemed to close and 
the moonlight was shut off. 
***** 
The lights in the house blazed out and 
my deaf friend 6tumbled through the yard 
and in through the door. He felt like a 
murderer, for that white face of the man 
crawling through the grass haunted him. 
There had been something fearful about 
the way that white face had turned to 
him after his shot and then dropped in 
death. He Avas a murderer—he had killed 
a man in a foolish quarrel which had 
nothing to do Avith him. I presume no 
one can realize what this man suffered as 
he made his way into the house. lie 
found a jubilant family—even the women 
and girls laughing and exulting over the 
death of these intruders. 
“A great shot you made,” said the 
farmer; “you hit right in the head. Come 
and look at ’em!” 
They led the poor, heart-broken fellow 
out to where the bodies lay—the boys 
carrying lanterns and the girls behind 
them. Our friend shut his eyes and tried 
not to look at these poor mangled bodies, 
but some terrible fascination forced him 
to look. He remembered thinking that 
this was the first and only time he had 
prayed for blindness. He knew that the 
white face which had turned to him in 
the moonlight would always be Avith him. 
iff 
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