1106 
7ht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 10, 1921 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Here comes little Rose running down 
the beach to meet me. her bare brown 
feet hardly making an impression in the 
hard sand. Every few steps she stops to 
try to turn a handspring in the. very joy 
of living. 
“They gotta lot of fish !” she announces 
as she gets at my hand and pulls me 
.••long. Her joy and excitement are con¬ 
tagious. and I am half inclined to try a 
bandspring myself as we hurry along. 
The boys caught about 50 fish, including 
one five-pound cod and several big 
flounders. The family will select what 
they want for supper, the rest being sold 
to the local fishmau. The boys pay the 
rent of their boat and make something 
besides at their fishing. But dinner is 
ready, and the fishing and the salt air 
have made us ready for it. We have 
hardly chairs enough for all, so little Rose 
sits on my knee. For dinner we have the 
fifth meal from a leg of lamb. I think 
this lamb was something of a sheep to 
begin with, and it seems to run on five 
legs. At any rate, we had its leg roasted 
for one meal, then reroasted for another. 
Then a few slices helped out still another. 
The bones, boiled with potatoes, carrots 
and turnips, made a thick broth, and 
here are the scraps cooked with gravy. 
This, with potatoes and carrots, makes a 
full meal for anyone, but in order to heap 
it up and run it over the little girls bring 
in a big dish of hot gingerbread, thick and 
fragrant. I must say that our folks dis¬ 
play considerable ginger in the way they 
clean up that dish. Down in this country 
there are very few table scraps. 
***** 
After dinner the children clean up the 
dishes and sweep the sand out of the 
house. There is usually more or less 
sand on the floor. Our folks bring it in 
when they go in bathing, and then track 
back along the beach. I am going to sit 
on that log down on the beach and look 
out across the water. We all do more or 
less of that. We never can quite tell 
what we are looking at or what we ex¬ 
pect to see, but we all find it restful just 
to sit here and watch the water rolling 
and glittering in the sunlight. That is 
part of this lazy life, and a useful part, 
I think. Far off to the right Gurnet 
Point stretches out into the water. Yes¬ 
terday I started walking down the beach, 
and kept on and on until I was more than 
half way to the end. Then it seemed 
worth while to continue, and I kept walk¬ 
ing. until finally I reached the lighthouse. 
They call it 15 miles there and back. 
That will do to talk about as a record, 
but about 12 miles will cover it. It is a 
wild, lonely place, with a few fishermen, 
one farmer and a number of Summer cot¬ 
tages. I should take the farmer to be the 
son of the man I saw there 40 years ago. 
He has three cows, one horse, a few hay- 
fields, a garden, perhaps an acre of pota¬ 
toes and a 1'ttle corn. The grass and 
potatoes looked quite well, but there was 
too much wind for the corn. It made a 
low stalk, very thick and heavy. It 
seemed to have adapted itself so as to 
brace against the strong ocean wind. I 
found the ruins of an old fort built during 
the Civil War. When I was a boy eight 
or 10 smooth-bore guns were mounted 
here. I find part of one old gun carriage 
left. Fifty years ago these cannon seemed 
terrible enough to us. Now if a modern 
warship were to stand about 10 miles off 
and throw a few shells into these earth¬ 
works there would be little left except a 
pile of dust. The well in the fort is about 
00 feet deep, the water cold, but a little 
brackish—as one would expect. I sat on 
the steps of the lighthouse and thought 
it all over. Everything about this place 
has changed except the farming and the 
great cloud of gulls circling and screaming 
around the point. I walked back along 
the beach, thinking about it—how fann¬ 
ing seems to be last, among the great in¬ 
dustries. to feel the mighty changes which 
the years have brought. Then far down 
the beach I saw a little group approach¬ 
ing. My children are coming to walk 
back with me. 
***** 
I had selected this afternoon for a trip 
back among the hills to get some huckle¬ 
berries and have a look at the old farm 
where we used to visit Uncle Charles. 
So we packed half a dozen into the car 
and started. When you leave the sea¬ 
shore and the marsh the land rises 
abruptly into a range of low hills. The 
soil is light, the timber chiefly scrub oak 
and plum We drove past the farm 
where Adelaide Phillips, the great con- 
iralto singer, once lived. This community 
prides itself on the fact that it gave this 
Morions voice to the world. Just beyond 
is the old home of Daniel Webster. The 
ately house and park-like lawns have 
•ii well preserved. Daniel Webster! 
groat world speaks of him as a super- 
n. Down in tins smaller world are a 
w people left Avho can remember the 
"god-like Daniel.” They will tell you 
that while he may have been “quite a 
man” in the United States Senate, there 
were half a dozen farmers in Marshfield 
who could talk him down and beat him in 
t own meeting! T imagine there are many 
so-called great men who owe their repu¬ 
tation to the accident of their surround¬ 
ings. We turned off the mai» -nad and 
into the woods and followed slowly along 
a typical “dusty highway.” Soon we 
were in the midst of a huckleberry fi< Id. 
the low bushes black with the fruit. With 
six pickers we soon had enough. Whil 
we were p'eking the owner of the pro¬ 
perty, as I took him to be, appeared, 
driving through the woods. Tin a it sud¬ 
denly flashed upon me that we would be 
taken for “auto hogs.” Very likely this 
man would give us a full dose of the 
medicine we have prescribed for other 
"hogs.” But he had no objection; there 
were plenty of unpicked berries, and lie 
drove on without comment. We filled our 
pails and then went on to inspect the 
old farm. 
If you are interested in lonely places 
you should have been with us in the hill 
pasture as we looked down upon that 
home. It is a typical New England 
farmhouse of the last century—a square, 
unpainted wooden box, without ornament, 
and with one great chimney at the center. 
It stands at the foot of a low hill, close 
to the upper end of the marsh. There is 
only one other house in sight, far away 
on a distant hill across the low ground. 
Shadows gather here early in the after¬ 
noon. I remembered that before my Un¬ 
cle Charles moved in a man was found 
lying dead on the threshold of the kitchen. 
In former years the hill where we stand 
was in grass—a good pasture, with parts 
of it in meadow. Now it is a tangle of 
briers, vines and huckleberries. Out by 
the back door an old man was feebly 
chopping wood. Two small boys were 
picking vegetables in the garden. A 
woman, broom in hand, looked out at the 
back window. She brought to mind that 
poem by Robert Frost. Perhaps you have 
read it. He pictures the woman—a mid¬ 
dle-aged back-to-the-lander—looking out 
of the window by the sink, and observing 
the weeds and the flowers. All the rest 
of her life she is to see them day by day! 
When I asked my boys if we had not 
better sell our farm in New Jersey and 
come here to try to show what can be 
done, they shuddered and turned away. 
And yet there is a strip of land up 
through this farm where the McIntosh 
apple would grow to perfection! Ilubam 
clover would grow on this soil, and I 
think kudzu might thrive. With a trac¬ 
tor we could rip this soil up, and there 
is a wonderful market at the seashore, 
five miles away. But Mother shook her 
head when I spoke of living there, and if 
the girl does not want to stay, who can 
expect the boys to do so? So we were 
glad to drive away, off on the other side 
of the hill, where the shadows do not 
seem to play quite such lonesome tricks 
on the face of nature. And all the way 
back to the bench I was thinking of that 
poem by Robert Frost. When I was a 
boy the farm I have just been speaking 
of joined another which had its house on 
the main road. At one time this house 
was abandoned, but now the buildings are 
painted in gaudy colors, and there is a 
great sign : “Pleasant View Farm.” It 
reminded me of a countryman who had 
always dressed in rough clothing suddenly 
decking himself out in glad clothes of his 
own selection. But there is no use talk¬ 
ing. people like to live where “something 
goes by.” 
* 
* 
well, 
You 
fried 
after 
were 
ner. 
But no matter how the abandoned farm 
question strikes me—or Robert Frost— 
my children are not greatly inteiested. 
They were all ready for supper by the 
time we reached the beach. The boys 
had cleaned the fish and the little girls 
fried it—under the eye of my daughter. 
That young woman had also made a great 
batch of corn meal bread. I suspect she 
put a couple of extra eggs into it; at any 
rate, it Avas good; and as for the fish, 
there is only one way to eat fish, 
must catch it yourself and have it 
or baked in less than six hours 
it. comes from the water. There 
a few boiled potatoes left from din- 
Tbe little girls had mashed these 
and baked them for a short time in a hot 
oven. Oh, it was a great supper! I will 
not say how much the Japanese boy con¬ 
sumed. And then, Avhen it seemed im¬ 
possible to eat any more, I caught sighi 
of the ice cream wagon driving by. and 
it seemed an ideal time to treat the com¬ 
pany to ice cream. It was groAving dark 
by the time Ave were through, and we all 
went to the beach and sat on the sand. 
The Avind Avas rising and the surf pounded 
hard on the sand bar. Far up the beach 
some company had started an open fire, 
and out at sea Ave could see the light 
from some belated fisherman making for 
the harbor. The light twinkled in the 
cottages, and the great flame of the light¬ 
house blazed out steadily. Yet somehow 
I could not drive from mind the mental 
picture of that family back on the lonely 
farm ! Cherry-top did not bring his vio- 
1 in along, but he has found one here. 
Uncle Charles used to play it before his 
fingers greAv stiff. So the boy bought new 
strings, and now as our people sit listen¬ 
ing to the groAvl and muttering of the 
ocean Cherry-top plays, softly, some of 
the old songs which have managed to 
live through the long years. Little Rose 
is curled tip beside me. Soon she will 
fall asleep with the murmur of the song 
the ocean is singing in her ears. We 
shall soon follow her, for in this lazy life 
by the sea sleep comes like a healing 
balm. n. W. C. 
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! s 
