December 11, 1920 
I85ti 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
——- .... _ri 
I presume that if I were some 50 years 
younger it might be said that I am sit¬ 
ting here in disgrace tonight. In past 
years I have been denied the privilege of 
eating supper and have been sent to bed 
early for smaller crimes than the one for 
which I stand convicted. Perhaps some 
of you have read Victor Hugo’s “Last 
Days of a Condemned Man !” Strangely 
enough, that comes into mind tonight as 
I sit before the blazing fire with other 
lights out. It is a bad night—raw and 
wet—cold enough for an overcoat, but 
still too warm to freeze. It seems to me 
that the wet fingers of the night are 
searching at door and window to find 
a place where they may creep in and put 
out their enemy—the fire. The big, dry 
chunk of an old apple tree on the fire 
is spitting defiance at them, and there are 
reserves in the wood box. Along the top 
of the mantel, over the fireplace, is a long 
row of red apples. Join me in eating one 
while wo consider things a little. Mother 
is upstairs after doing her duty in my 
ease. My daughter is making mince pies 
in the kitchen, with the children as an 
attentive audience—each one ready at a 
moment’s notice to lick off the big spoon. 
The white-faced cat peers in at me 
through a window. We have no dog. So 
I may sit here alone—very mueh more 
comfortable than Victor Hugo’s criminal. 
***** 
But what is the crime? My lawyer 
friend says: “Never admit anything. 
Make them prove it! If they do prove it, 
make it appear a mistake!” It happens 
that just before supper the girls noticed 
a button on my overcoat that was work¬ 
ing loose. So Mother got out her needle 
and thread to make that button hold more 
firmly to its duty. As you know, it has 
been considered a woman’s privilege (from 
the earliest time of wearing clothes) to 
go through her husband’s pockets on a 
voyage of discovery. She found the usual 
assortment of old handkerchiefs, pieces of 
string, old papers and odds and ends, and 
also— two letters which she gave me to 
mail several days ago! Now you know 
my crime and the complete evidence 
against me! Were they important let¬ 
ters? What a question ! It is probably 
asked by some man who never was caught 
red-handed in such an act. As they say 
in New York, if my situation may justify 
a bit of slang, they “have me with the 
goods on !” And here I have been lectur¬ 
ing the children for their carelessness! 
I have nothing to say, but as I sit here 
before the fire there comes to mind the 
memory of another forgotten letter and 
what came of it. It ie a pleasanter mem¬ 
ory of Christmas. 
***** 
Long before the days of cars and elec¬ 
tric lights and telephones a friend of mine 
went to live in a little Southern town. 
His people lived on a farm in Kentucky, 
where, as you may know, Christmas is 
the great day of the year for home-coming 
and good cheer. This man’s busin»ss did 
not prosper as he hoped it would. Things 
w r ent wrong with him. The soft, wet 
weather seemed untimely for Christmas, 
and everything seemed to combine to turn 
life upside down. This man had bragged 
a little to his family about the great suc¬ 
cess he was to reach in the South. Suc¬ 
cess had not come to him, and though he 
was homesick for Kentucky, he could not 
bring himself to go back for a visit and 
admit that he was still more or less of a 
failure. 7. can easily imagine just how 
he felt when three days before Christmas 
there came a letter from his old mother 
begging him to come back for the holiday. 
Poor old mother! When the feast was 
spread she would look over her great 
brood of children, happy that they could 
be there, yet her eyes would fill with tears 
because her boy was absent. When this 
letter came the man sat for a long time 
looking out into the dull, gloomy street. 
In his heart there was a bitter fight, be¬ 
tween love and pride. For there was a 
girl in Kentucky and a mean, foolish mis- 
uifderstanding which had driven him from 
home. So he sat for a long time, gazing 
out into the gloomy street, and then wrote 
a short note telling his mother that he 
could not come. While he tried to avoid 
it something of the bitterness of his spirit 
crept into the note, and he knew it came 
like a frost to his mother’s heart. It was 
late afternoon when he sealed the note. 
Out on the street he handed it to a col¬ 
ored man who was wheeling two mail 
bags down to the train. 
“Here. John, be sure to have this put 
on the north-bound train !” 
“Yes, suh ! Thankee, euh! Chrismus 
gift!” 
***** 
By the time the man reached home 
darkness had fallen. It was a raw. wet 
night, much like the damp gloom which is 
trying to crow'd in upon us tonight And 
though thie man piled and poked the fire 
until it roared, the gloom of the night 
reached him. For as he sat there the 
real meaning of what he had done came 
to him with terrible power. The walls 
of his room faded away, and he looked in 
upon the old home in Kentucky. There 
was mother, white-haired, but still erect, 
her wrinkled face pink with happiness as 
one by one her big sons and daughters 
came home for Christmas. There was a 
great roomful of children shouting and 
romping—yet all at once strangely still 
and expectant as the teacher came in and 
spoke to them. The man started as he 
saw her face—a little white and thin and 
wistful, but with the old beauty and 
power to stir his heart. And then he saw 
his mother waiting impatiently for the 
boys to come home with the mail. He 
saw her walk to the window and stand 
looking down the road until the horseman 
appeared in the distance. He heard her 
say : 
“I know he brings a letter from Charlie. 
I know he is coming!” 
He saw her hurry out to meet the mail 
carrier and snatch the cold, formal letter 
which he had written but a few hours 
before. And as she read he saw the eager 
hope fade out. of his mother’s face and 
the brave old eyes fill with tears at her 
boy’s letter. 
And “Charlie” saw it all as he sat 
there in his lonely room, until he realized 
with overpowering force just what he had 
done. The room seemed too small to hold 
his grief. He rushed to the window and 
pulled aside the curtain—staring out into 
the blackness, feeling that the imps of 
the night were mocking him with the 
hopelessness of his «ituation. 
***** 
As the man stood peering out. into the 
darkness he saw a light close at hand. He 
remembered that right across the narrow 
street was a negro cabin. He had no¬ 
ticed it by daylight—a poor, tumbledown 
shack, built up on shaky posts, with a 
herd of dogs sleeping under it and a flock 
of black children at windows and doors. 
It had never interested him by day, but 
now in the loneliness of his soul the light 
in the cabin window seemed like a friendly 
companion. It may not be considered 
polite, in refined society at least, to stand 
and. watch your neighbors at their do¬ 
mestic affairs, but when the human heart 
craves common sympathy, the artificial 
uses of society may well stand aside. 
The cabin was lighted by a big lire of 
pine wood, with a small lamp on the table. 
A fat colored woman, black as the night 
itself, had just taken a big pan of corn 
bread from the front of the fire. She put 
it on the table, brought a pile of tin 
plates and a jug. Then she stood by the 
table, with her hands on her hips, and the 
man at the window could hear her iuvita- 
tion : 
“You all come an’ eat.” 
From every corner of the room they 
came on the run. The man counted 
them—seven black children, each one 
seeming blacker than any of the others. 
“Fingers were made before forks” in the 
philosophy of this household. The woman 
broke off great chunks of the corn pone 
and put them on the tin plates. Then i 
she poured molasses over the chunks of 
bread, and “dinner is served.” The fam¬ 
ily fell to and cleared up the last, crumb, 
ending the performance by Peking the 
plates, until their faces shone with 
smiles and teeth and molasses. Then as. 
the man watched it seemed as if a shadow 
even blacker than the night passed him. 
The dogs under the cabin all barked with 
what seemed a note of joy and welcome 
in their voices. The little black children 
all ran to the door and fought for the 
privilege of opening it to admit a black 
man with a ragged coat and a battered 
hat. The man recognized his old friend, 
John, the mailbag carrier, a humble ser¬ 
vant of Uncle Sam in this muddy town. 
It was some time before John couM es¬ 
cape from the children. They climbed 
all over him, and hugged him until their 
mother took a stick and rescued her hus¬ 
band from this reception committee. Then 
John hung his ragged coat on a nail and 
sat down to enjoy his supper of corn pone 
and molasses. The watcher at the win¬ 
dow was thinking how. many a white 
man would go home to his six-course din¬ 
ner—to his cold and formal wife and his 
spoiled children, and in his heart envy 
this ragged colored man the love and hap¬ 
piness which surrounded his plain “dinner 
of herbs.” 
***** 
Suddenly John stopped eating, his 
mouth full of corn none, and rubbed his 
head as if trying to remember something. 
You know how cultivation stimulates the 
growth of plants! Well. 1 have seen men 
awaken dormant cells of memory inside 
the head by scratching the covering of 
the skull. John seemed to stimulate his 
memory in that way. He got up from 
the table, went to where his ragged coat 
hung on its nail, and fumbled through it 
until he brought forth a letter. The man 
who was watching him so intently knew 
in an instant what it. was. John had for¬ 
gotten to mail that letter. In an instant 
the watcher ran out into the dark, 
straight for that negro cabin. He got 
there just in time. John was n humble 
servant of Uncle Sam, but he evidently 
believed that dead men tell no tales, while 
fire destroys all evidence. He was just 
at the point of putting that letter in the 
fire as the quickest way to hide his mis¬ 
take when, amidst a chorus from the 
dogs, the man burst into the room. 
“John, you black rascal, what are you 
doing with that letter? Give it to me!” 
John was so frightened at this evidence 
of the white man’s magic power of vision 
that he could not speak. He handed the 
letter over, expecting a sound thrashing, 
but the white man actually handed him a 
dollar with : 
“Take that, you black rascal, to pay 
for your forgetting. But if you ever try 
to burn another letter, we’ll burn you !” 
***** 
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