552 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 29, 1924 
Hope Farm Notes 
Pakt II. 
1 am not so sure about the present feel¬ 
ing, but in my day each New England 
family was supposed to carry a “smart 
one” who must be educated at any cost. 
From the beginning when the Yankees 
in 1030 appropriated 400 pounds to es¬ 
tablish a new college, while two years 
later John Harvard gave his library and 
half his estate, the old New England 
stock has believed in “education” as a 
power to remove great mountains, from 
the pathway of a republic. It is re¬ 
markable that these poor colonists, faced 
with the prospect of an Indian war, 
trouble with England and discord at home, 
should organize a system of education 
based oh taxation. It was the spirit 
which drove the Yankee to put up a 
seboolhouse wherever he went. During 
our Civil War this spirit came out in 
Dowell's poem, Jonathan to John : 
“We ain’t so dreadful poor, John, 
With twenty million people, 
And close by every door, John, 
A seboolhouse and a steeple.” 
The Yankee believed in education and 
in the best tools he could get, and that 
was probably why the smart one in the 
family was selected as the family offering 
at Harvard or Yale or Dartmouth. It 
came to be a sort of family religion, and 
when the smart one had real character 
and understanding it proved a great sys¬ 
tem. The trouble was that in too many 
families the smart one was selected for 
bis brains and not for his character, and 
as usually happens, brains, without the 
balance of character, cannot or will not 
put the power of education to any noble 
or unselfish use. And education, devoted 
to mere selfish gratification, is worse than 
stolen money used lo build up a great 
fortune. 
# * * * 
There can be no question about the 
fact that Henry had what we call 
“brains.” That is to say lie had the 
nerves and gray matter inside his skull 
which gave a quick reaction to thought 
or suggestion. He was “smart”—there 
can be no question about that. I am 
quite sure that well-directed labor and 
strict discipline would have given him 
some foundation of character, but what 
can be done with a child who is taught 
from his cradle that he is naturally smart¬ 
er than the rest, and who spends his 
young life trying to advertise his inferior 
brand of superiority, patched and 
brushed to make a showing? The good 
old-fashioned job of doing “chores” has 
saved many a man from wreck on the 
.shoals of egotism. 1 doubt the possibility 
of properly educating any young man 
who has not at some time been forced to 
work with his hands. There are “chores” 
enough on any New* England farm, but 
Henry escaped them. If there was a hog¬ 
pen to clean out, or a henhouse to make 
fit, plain George or Thomas must do it, 
for the future Senator or President must 
not soil his hands with, such labor. It is 
strange how otherwise sensible women 
will lose their head in their dreams about 
the smart one’s future. With any one of 
her other children the mother of this fam¬ 
ily could play the part of Spartan mother 
to perfection, which means that she would 
usually overdo it. With the smart one, 
however, the Spartan faded out and she 
became as foolish as the most feeble 
Athenian or woman of Capua. 
4 # 
Thus Sarah and her plainer brothers 
and sisters grew up with the fixed idea 
that they must all contribute to Henry’s 
“education.” In these freer days there 
would doubtless be more or less rebellion, 
but in those olden times children were 
obedient and carried a sense of responsi¬ 
bility and duty. Possibly they overdid 
it. Perhaps something of the present 
swing to the other extreme is due to the 
iron bound discipline which forced young 
people to weight down the springs of hu¬ 
man nature with the heavy weight of fam¬ 
ily responsibility. When that was thrown 
off the power of the hidden spring forced 
the repressed human nature into what we 
now call “jazz.” That I do not know 
much about, but at any rate Henry never 
felt the weight of responsibility. Life 
was made as easy for him as the old farm 
permitted. He loafed and bluffed his way 
through school. He never could have 
passed his examinations if Sarah had not 
worked out his hard problems for him. 
1 wish someone would tell me why every 
line woman is quite sure to make some¬ 
thing of a foolish slave of herself over 
some man—usually a thoroughly worth¬ 
less one. Some of them who would go to 
the stake rather than make a false state¬ 
ment will drive within a hair’s breadth of 
a lie in order to save .some good-for-noth¬ 
ing son or brother. I confess that T have 
never been able to understand how a 
woman of Sarah’s common sense and 
character could have treated Henry as 
she did. I can understand the mother’s 
feelings; that may be called an elemental 
characteristic of humanity, but why this 
practical and gifted young woman should 
do what she did for her worthless brother 
>s too much for me. Perhaps it is not 
given to any man to understand such 
things, for most men are incapable of do¬ 
ing them. Sarah was a born teacher, and 
it was her life’s dream to graduate at nor¬ 
mal college. What an educator she would 
have made! What lives she would have 
trained and inspired! But it was her duty 
to earn that Henry might spend, and 
without a murmur she gave up her 
dreams and took up her life as a 
teacher in the little district school. 
From the small group of children 
which gathered about her, men and 
women have grown up to occupy great 
places in the world. Sometimes their 
mind will trace back along the tortuous 
path through the years, seeking to find 
the spring or germ from which came the 
inspiration which carried them through 
their hard struggle. And through the 
mists of memory there will arise the pic¬ 
ture of a silent black-haired woman in a 
rough, unpainted seboolhouse, who some¬ 
how seemed to change her rude surround- ; 
ings into a palace of hope. But they can- j 
not know how baffled ambition and hope¬ 
less, concealed love, created the sublime 
desire which touched them and drove 
them on to success. 
* ije * * if 
The years went by, slowly, relentlessly, 
on they do in a New England hill town. 
Mother slowly faded, radiantly happy that 
her smart boy was at college. To her he 
was a hero; to others he stood for what 
he was—a brilliant lazy shirk. He was 
pitcher of the college baseball club, one 
of the best dancers at college, already up 
to his ears in debt. As for scholarship, 
he studied just enough to get a passing 
mark, and selected a course Which gave 
him least need of effort. At vacations he 
would appear at the farm to rest after 
his arduous labors. Farm work? Never! 
lie would play a few games of ball with 
local nines to keep in practice, and one 
Summer he worked as waiter at a high- 
priced hotel until he was found paying 
close attention to the daughter of some 
rich magnate guest, for which he was 
“fired” as though from a cannon. His re- j 
lations to the family were typical of the 
snob. It was: 
“Oh, Sally, you’ve got to help me out ! 
I know you have some money saved up. I 
have got to have $50 right off.. You just 
got to let me have it,” 
Or it would be: 
“Say, Sally, can’t you get the old girl to 
brace up a little? She’s a fright as she 
goes around. 1 want to bring a couple of 
friends home from the ball game. Get her 
to brace up for once!” 
And Sarah would dutifully take her 
school money from the bank and hand it 
to him. She flared into anger at the 
words about her mother, but on the day 
of the ball game she bought a new dress 
for the old lady, manicured her nails, 
brushed the thin white hair into shape, 
aand even put a touch of rouge on the 
faded cheeks. And mother was really 
beautiful with the light of love and pride 
in her eyes at the thought of her famous 
boy. So much so that one impulsive 
friend of the smart one just took her 
hand and said: 
“I think you are beautiful, Mrs. Bart¬ 
lett. If my mother had lived I think she 
would have looked just like you.” 
I presume no woman can ever have any 
higher compliment than that, for what 
can be more beautiful than the vision of a 
dead mother which comes to the heart of a 
clean and hopeful boy? But Henry, who 
heard it, was only anxious that Ins mother 
would not talk freely, so that her gram¬ 
mar and pronunciation would not stand 
out “like a sore thumb,” as he expressed 
it. ' 
Sarah toiled on with a new trouble at 
her heart. Joseph Russell came back 
from the West, as he frankly said, to find 
a wife. In the old days Joseph and Sarah 
had known that they were made for each 
other, but there was no engagement, for 
each had a burden and duty. Joseph had 
his mother to care for. Now she was 
dead, and out on the Western prairies 
Joseph was already a man of mark. He 
would go higher, and hi* rise meant 
Sarah’s opportunity. 
“Gome with me,” he said, “and you 
will be free. I need you. I know you 
love me. Come!” 
“But, Joseph, you know I cannot leave 
my duty. I must carry the family 
through!” 
“Family! Make that great lazy ball 
player do his duty, lie will shirk just as 
long as you provide for him. He will 
lean on you just as long as you feed him, 
and no longer.” 
It was true and well meant, but it led 
to a quarrel. Both were stubborn, and 
Joseph went back West with Mary Mor¬ 
ton, though, to the day of his death, he 
knew he had taken the wrong girl. Sarah 
kept her little school. Her face grew thin¬ 
ner and sharper, and the white began to 
show a little in her hair. 
$ * « ❖ ❖ 
Then mother faded away. Almost the 
last word to Sarah was a command to 
keep the family together. She died proud¬ 
ly confident that she had given the world 
a strong man—a great leader. The 
other children had grown up to be plain, 
plodding men and women without firm 
purpose or ambition. Then Henry grad¬ 
uated from college. Honors to pay for 
(■Continued on page 503) 
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