1072 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 0, 1924 
Hope Farm Notes 
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 
Part IV 
Who was the man who undertook to 
say “Virtue is its own reward”? He 
never worked on a farm in New England 
or New Jersey or else he was one of those 
sour-minded people who try to get extra 
work out of children. I knew two little 
girls who were put at weeding onions. It 
wae a small patch and, pushed on by.an 
intense desire to do their duty, these girls 
fried in the sun and stewed in the fog 
until every weed and blade of grass was 
pulled out. It was a good job, and those 
girls experienced the momentary thrill 
which comes to those who feel that they 
may now retire on their record. The in¬ 
terruption of that thrill is about the 
meanest sensation in life. It is like 
changing a thrill into a malaria chill. A 
neighbor came along and saw that clean 
patch. , . , 
“Fine!” he said. “Clean as n whistle! 
Who did that?” 
When the girls were pointed out he 
was greatly pleased. 
“They did such a nice job that I want 
them to come and clean up my field!” 
So those little girls got down on their 
knees to weed something like a quarter ot 
an acre of onions. It doesn’t pay to be 
known as an expert unless you are full 
master of your own time and can make 
vour own price for service. It is fine to 
be drafted into a big job on the record of 
your performance in ®. small job, provided 
you are master of your own situation. 
What incentive can there be for a slave to 
do expert work? . . . 
You see, I took extra pains in picking 
those berries for dinner. They were big, 
crimson fellows, just ready to melt in 
your mouth without chewing. If I had 
filled my pan with nubbins Ma never 
would have eaten two plates and then 
looked across the table ! at me with that 
penetrating smile of hers. 
“These berries are so fine that I must 
put some of them in jars. Why can’t you 
pick 10 quarts more just like them this 
afternoon? I can put them right up 
while the stove is hot!” 
Why not, indeed? Having proved my 
skill at picking berries, why should the 
job be done bv amateurs? Expert labor 
is the need of the hour. Why not set my 
young folks a lesson, in industry, and at 
the same time provide for Winter? Who 
does not like to have his ability as an ex¬ 
pert recognized? To tell the truth, I 
would prefer to sit in the shade and read 
my book, but there are times when the 
truth can hardly be called “words fitly 
spoken.” 
* * * * * 
So I take baskets and get out where the 
sun strikes hardest at the berry patch. 
The little girls will take a nap so as to be 
ready for the fireworks this evening. It 
is a good time to reason the thing out as 
I crawl along the rows, striving to main¬ 
tain my reputation by picking big ones. 
Why am I here, with all these young 
people on the farm? Half a century ago 
Uncle DAniel would have chased me out 
into the field to pick fruit. Can it be that 
this new generation believes in the old 
saying “Wear the oldest out first l No 
big ones for home use in those days— 
they must be sold. The nubbins and the 
specked apples were for home consump¬ 
tion. The best was entirely too good for 
the family. In the older generation I had 
to be driven to this work with a hard 
scolding if I undertook to put some of the 
real joy of life into the family contribu¬ 
tion box. Here is a big berry as large as 
an apple. I’ll eat that one myself. Had 
I done that 50 years ago I well know 
what Uncle Daniel would have shouted 
cl L t . 
“Stop that, now! No eating! I don t 
object to your eating a soft or wormy ber¬ 
ry now and then, but never let me see you 
eating a big one! It will give you habits 
of extravagance which will be your ruin.” 
Perhaps that is typical of the change 
that is coming over the world as new gen¬ 
erations come on. Here I am now, do¬ 
ing from choice the things I hated worse 
than slavery in those “good old days.” 
And instead of living on nubbins, here I 
am picking out the best for our own use. 
It is a great change. Are we drifting 
away from the old safe harbor of thrift 
and economy, or do we see a better and 
happier landing place “off across the 
bay?” Honest, now, would that, old close 
and pinching economy fit into present 
conditions? Why should a farmer always 
feel that the best of his produce must al¬ 
ways go to others? Why should he al¬ 
ways expect to eat at the second table 
and take the leavings at that? We need a 
new declaration of independence in rela¬ 
tion to the psychology of farming. I am 
tired of seeing country people assume that 
folks who live in town must of necessity 
be smarter and better and entitled to 
greater privileges than country people. 
Yet that is what many country folks 
seem to think. The more they act up to 
it the more securely they put themselves 
in a lower caste, and the more they give 
the impression that farmers were created 
for lower forms of service—when feeding 
and clothing the world is the highest form 
of service that we can imagine. We do 
need a new independence. Some of our 
people say the old Declaration of Jeffer¬ 
son is a lie in its statement that all men 
are created equal. It is a self-evident 
fact that some men come into the world 
•with a far better heritage than others. I 
will not argue that. I know that the 
original best citizen was a farmer. He 
seems to have taken to hunting and fight¬ 
ing, leaving food production to women and 
weaklings. Always a good eater, he want¬ 
ed the best and before long he began to 
consider it beneath his dignity to sweat in 
the field, hoe in hand. He has kept that 
up as civilization went on and split up 
his job into all sorts of schemes for boss¬ 
ing and “protecting” the land worker, 
under the idea of serving him. This never 
could have been done if education and 
social habit had not put the thought se¬ 
curely into the human mind that some¬ 
how he who handles or distributes what 
the farmer produces is of necessity of a 
higher type than he who does the real 
work on the land. That ie the psychology 
of it, and the constant reiteration of that 
thought has helped to put us where we 
are. Indeed, we need a new declaration 
of independence. My judgment is that all 
these great schemes for co-operation in 
politics and business will fall short of 
success until this psychological feature of 
it is corrected and we as farmers know 
that we are just as good as anybody. We 
know it now, but we do not act up to it. 
* # * * * 
In this new book I am reading, the 
author, G. Stanly Hall, goes over the re¬ 
lations between age and youth. He says 
that up to this generation at least it has 
been the business of mature years to 
direct the course of youth and repress 
some of its tendencies. This was often 
done forcibly by using the Scriptures and 
a stick—as I can readily testify. Age 
felt it necessary to discipline youth. Of 
course youth resented this, not knowing 
it was needed. Hall points out that long 
continued generations of this strict dis¬ 
cipline have unconsciously left their mark 
upon the human mind in the form of re¬ 
sentment or rebellion which, without our 
knowing it, often influences our feeling 
toward old people. We may love our old 
folks dearly, and we may come to know 
that we needed the discipline; yet at 
times there will well up in the mind a 
spirit of rebellion against fancied wrongs. 
I am inclined to think that much of the 
insubordination and ill behavior of the 
younger generation may be due to the 
cumulative effect of all these generations 
of repression. Discipline 'has fallen oft. 
In fact, how has old-fashioned family con¬ 
trol been possible in this age of automo¬ 
biles, telephones and radio? This lack of 
reasonable discipline has caused these old 
resentments and rebellious thoughts to 
boil up in youthful minds and dominate 
them. Here again, as in the case of the 
mental servility of too many farmers, we 
must face the psychology of the situation. 
You may think I have fallen in love with 
that 'word'—“got stuck on it,” as my 
young folks might say. No, that word 
knocked me out of a spelling champion¬ 
ship once, and the thought still rankles. 
Very likelv that fact helps to prove what 
I am getting at—but at any rate the 
word stands for a study of the motives and 
inherited impulses which we must consid¬ 
er and either overcome or improve if we 
are to make good that new declaration of 
independence. 
Hall undertakes to study old age in all 
its details. He rightly says that the high¬ 
est evidence of improved civilization is 
the way a family or a nation treats its 
old people. The half-civilized tribes or 
groups regard the aged as an incum¬ 
brance, to be promptly made away with 
whenever they become useless in produc¬ 
ing food or in hunting. _ Probably that 
is one reason why such tribes are so slow 
to advance in civilization, for when they 
kill off or humiliate the old people they 
destroy their records of experience, and 
there can be no real progress without 
experience as a foundation. And yet 
there is another side to it. 
“A psychological servility that neither 
learns nor forgets is always a menace 
and a check instead of being , as old age 
should he, a guide in emergencies. We 
have not grown old aright and are par¬ 
alyzed by a wisdom that is obsolete or 
barnacled by prejudice.'” 
* * * * * 
But on counting up I find I have 11 
quarts. I think the shade of that tree 
will be more comfortable for all this phil¬ 
osophy. Here come the children after 
the berries. They walk slowly back 
down the lane, each with her crimson 
armful. We will eat that. extra quart 
between us. Those big berries will come 
out of their jars some cold stormy day 
in January to remind us of Summer and 
youth. It is good to be under this tree. 
The Red-top and Alsdke drying in the hot 
wind smell like tea. I can get a glimpse 
of the cherry orchard from here. They 
hang full of red fruit. It will be a 
great job to get them off, and there is 
such a flood of them this year that prices 
will be low. I must get that turnip seed 
and broadcast it Where those old straw¬ 
berry plants were plowed under. We 
have put in some cabbage, but there is a 
strip left. That rye must be cut next 
week. It is good, too. On part of the 
(Continued on page 1070) 
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