From Cornfield Philosophy, by C. D. Strode, Illustrated, Chicago: The Blakely Printing Co., 1902; pp. 157-191.
157
THE WOODMAN BOLD.
_______________
That wind is cold — as cold as
death.
Swing the ax! Swing, swing!
I freezes your nose as you get
your breath.
Swing the ax, and make ’er
ring!
It’s froze the creek up hard and
tight.
Swing the ax with all your
might!
It’s froze the heart of this old
tree,
But you bet your life it can’t
freeze me.
Swing it low and swing it high,
Throw it in to the very eye!
Throw it in and yank it out,
Land o’ Gosh! But ain’t I stout.
The atmosphere’s almighty clear,
Choppin’ wood to save the sawin’.
Brings my wife’s folks’ house so near.
Can almost hear her mother jawin’.
And that wind is cold and that’s no lie.
Whack the chips and make ’em fly!
But I don’t care how cold she be,
158
You’ll never hear a whine from me
Swing her high and swing her low,
Swing her fast and swing her slow!
For I am stout and I am bold —
But Land o’ Gosh! my toes are cold.
There goes a wagon in the road —
Only one I’ve seen to-day —
Bumpin’ ’long with half a load;
Don’t see how he makes it pay.
And there’s two sun dogs in the sky —
Cold as Greenland, mighty nigh.
And the neighbors seem inclined to shirk
For not a one is out at work.
I’m the only one in the neigborhood
Fool ’nough to be cuttin’ wood
On such a day, and it’s too durned thin.
Land o’ Gosh! I’m goin’ in.
159
THE SAW MILL MAN AND THE DEVIL.
_______________
A friend of mine told me this story. He says it is a new one, but I believe he is mistaken. It seems that away back in the halcyon days of my youth I heard the story, and it was an old story then. I believe it could be traced back to the original saw mill man, and with other application back to the time of Noah.
For there is little that is new under the sun. History shows that the human race travels in a circle. The young and enthusiastic, proceeding upon the path of life, are constantly coming upon things which they consider as new, and they are pleased and delighted until some old-timer points out the markings made by the feet of countless former generations. So my friend, full of enthusiasm and glowing with the generous desire to benefit humanity by making original research, reached the point 160 in his journey where he came upon this story lying almost hidden amid the rubbish. He dug it out, dusted and polished it and proclaims it to his wayworn fellow travelers as a new story. But as he tells it some dust-covered web-hidden door swing slowly open and there in a cupboard of my memory is the story, stowed away years ago and forgotten. Anyhow here is the story, partly as my friend tells it, and partly as it was told to me back in the 60s.
Once upon a time, a good many years ago, there lived in a certain section of the South a lumberman, who had never been able to make any money out of the lumber business. Now, dear Southern reader, don’t blush. I don’t mean you. There are others. I know that the description above does not very clearly distinguish the lumberman mentioned from other lumbermen, but it will answer.
So the lumberman, not being able to make any money in the lumber business, became very despondent. He had tried all plans and expedients and had failed. He had a man from Boston come out and buy all his uppers, and the balance he shipped to Chicago and sold for common and better; but the Boston man skinned him in the measurements, and the Chicago man drew on him for the freight, asking him to please come up and get his durned old mill culls. He bought logs up in the mountains, paying the natives hard-earned, sweat-stained dollars to bring them to the river. Then his mill stood idle six months waiting for a flood to float the logs down, and when the flood finally came, it was such a tremendous flood that it tore his boom all to flinders, and scattered his logs all the way to New Orleans, which was just as well, for on all the logs he captured the sap had rotted, and after sawing them into lumber he had nothing but culls which would hardly pay the freight into Cincinnati. And as he came 161 out in the early morning and viewed the piles of sap-stained, dozy and worm-eaten lumber, he lifted up his voice and wept. Then he wrote a heart-broken poem called “Nothing But Culls,” which was published in the county paper. He was a proud and high-spirited man of good family, and although he signed a fictitious name to the poem, it became known that he had written it, and it brought great shame and reproach upon him, and this, taken in connection with his other troubles, so preyed upon his sensitive nature that he determined to take his own life.
So one night he arose, silently dressed himself, took a chew of tobacco and went softly out of the house. Once out beneath the beautiful starlit summer sky, his purpose wavered. After all, the world seemed not so bad a place. The softening moonlight rested on all the land like a mantle of peace. From away in the woods came the mournful hooting of an owl, a cricket cricked cozily near by, and from the mill pond came the hoarse but melodious croaking of the bullfrogs. How beautiful and peaceful the familiar scene! And the woods were full of coons to be hunted and the rivers full of fish to be caught. After all, he didn’t know. Then he thought of his jug of moonshine whisky, hidden in the log heap, and he thought what a fool he had been to think of drowning himself and leaving that whisky for some nigger to find and enjoy. No, he would go and get a drink and return to bed. In the morning he would bravely take up his burden of life and bear it along, at least until the whisky was gone. The moment the resolution was made he felt better, and he hurried across the mill yard with springy steps. A great burden of doubt and uncertainty seemed to have rolled from him and he smiled to think what a fool he had almost been.
NO JUG.
163
As he came to the log heap he kicked the block which covered the hiding place to one side, and, stooping, put in his hand for the jug, his mouth watering in anticipation; and the jug wasn’t there.
Hurriedly he dropped on his knees and felt around with both hands. No jug. Then he sprang up and looked wildly about to make sure he was at the right heap. Yes, there was no mistake, someone had stolen his whisky.
The blow fell with crushing effect. For a moment he was stunned, and could only murmur, “Gone! gone!” Then a fit of rage seized him and he sprang over the logs and ran madly down to the river bank, determined to drown himself. He paused an instant to hitch up his trousers before making the fatal spring, and just then a hand was laid on his shoulder and a firm, pleasant voice said:
“Hold on a minute.”
The man turned and saw a tall, manly form standing beside him in the shadow, with what seemed to be a rope over its arm.
“Who are you?” asked the man.
“I am the devil,” said the stranger.
Then the man noticed that what had seemed a rope was in reality the devil’s tail. He also observed a pair of small horns projecting from the sides of his head, and that instead of feet he had cleft hoofs. Otherwise he bore a strong resemblance to a Chicago lumberman.
“What do you want?” asked the man.
“Well, sir, to tell the truth, I want your soul.”
“Why don’t you let me alone then, and let me drown myself?”
“Were you to drown yourself now,” said the devil, “I very much fear your soul would escape me. That is why I interfere. You see, you have been a pretty good 164 man — that is, for a lumberman. Casting up a man’s accounts, circumstances are always considered. A lumberman has much to vex him, and tempt him to break the commandments. This is especially true of the man running a saw mill in the poplar section, and he is allowed considerable latitude. In fact, nearly all the poplar mill men go to heaven on account of having so much hell on earth. Poplar men are almost as scarce in hell as they are at the association meetings. I have been watching you for some time, and I interfered to-night, hoping to induce you to refrain from suicide and let me do something for you that will give me some claim upon your soul.”
“Well,” said the man, slowly, “what do you propose.”
“I have,” said the devil, “a very liberal offer to make you. You are now, I believe, thirty-five years of age. The very time in a man’s life when he should be able to get much enjoyment out of existence. Here you are, about to commit suicide and leave this world when you have never tasted any of its pleasures. There is a lot of fun to be had by a healthy man of thirty-five, with plenty of money in his pockets.”
“I know it,” said the man bitterly. “Every day I realize it more, and that is one thing which drives me to desperation. My life has been one long period of trouble. Care is with me all day long; it sits on my pillow and keeps me awake far into the night; it haunts my dreams, and when I awake in the morning, unrefreshed, there it is, to greet me and cling to me throughout the livelong day. I have never had an hour of prosperity. I have never spent a dollar for pleasure that my conscience did not reproach me for days after. I am tired of it, and I will never go back to it. I’ll not deny, though, that I’d like to have my fling before I go.”
165“And I suppose,” said the devil, “you would be willing to pay for it?”
“How?”
“Well,” said the devil, “here is my proposition. You are now thirty-five years of age. I will furnish you all the money you want for ten years. That is, all you can spend. For ten years you can enjoy life to its full limit. At the end of that time, if I fulfill my contract, your soul is mine.”
“Forever?” said the man.
“Forever,” said the devil.
The man stood for a minute in deep thought. Then he asked: “What kind of a place is hell?”
“That is a point,” said the devil, “upon which there is much misapprehension. I give you my word that hell is no worse than the saw mill business.”
“Yes,” said the man, “the saw mill business is hell.”
To cut the story short, the man and the devil made the trade as suggested by the devil, except that the time was made fifteen years instead of ten. Arrangements were made whereby the man should draw upon a certain banker, a friend of the devil’s, for all the money he wanted, and, everything being settled, the devil disappeared and the man went back to his bed and slept soundly.
As soon as the bank opened in the morning the man presented his credentials, was furnished with funds and plunged at once into all kinds of dissipation.
He bought two suits of clothes, one a stout corduroy for hunting and fishing, and the best black suit in the store to be worn at dances and other social functions. He bought a fine outfit of fishing tackle, a Winchester rifle and the best coon dog in the county. He bought a 166 thousand cigars and a barrel of whisky, and oh, but he had a dickens of a good time.
Tiring, after a little, of the pleasures of his mountain home, he took a trip to Cincinnati, got in with the push, attended a banquet of the Lumbermen’s Club, and afterwards went over the Rhine and spend $11.40 in one night.
He went a swift gait for two years, spending lots of money and tasting all kinds of pleasures. And then he found it wasn’t so much fun after all. His health was not what it used to be, and all kinds of pleasures palled upon him. He found that when one makes a business of pleasure it is like all other kinds of business and isn’t pleasure at all. He found that where a coon hunt furnished exquisite enjoyment when he could only hunt once a week or once a month, it wasn’t a bit of fun when he had nothing to do but hunt. He found that where he had loved to slip away from his work of a Saturday afternoon and put in a half day fishing, it was no fun at all if he had no work to slip away from and could fish all day and every day if he so desired. He had been accustomed to a life of toil and was not fitted by nature and education for a life of leisure. In fact, at the end of two years, after the novelty of the thing had worn off, he became more disconsolate and unhappy than ever and was only deterred from committing suicide by the knowledge that in case he did he would go straight to hell.
Finally, after boarding over the matter for a month, he decided to return to the saw mill business. The more he thought over the matter, the better he liked the idea. Before he had always been cramped for money. He had never been able to carry on his business as he would have liked. All that would be changed now. With the devil to back him he could run a saw mill out of sight. So he decided to re-enter the saw mill business.
167To begin with, he purchased a fine body of timberland, several thousand acres, drawing heavily on his bank to pay for it. Then he put in the finest mill that money could equip. It was fitted with the best of modern appliances, everything as fine as a fiddle. Then, being remote from a railroad, he built one of his own over thirty miles of mountainous country, equipped it with rolling stock, round-house, etc., drawing heavily on the devil nearly every day. By this time the mill had started, but the market not suiting him, he piled his lumber instead of selling it, drawing upon the devil every week for funds to keep it going.
This was kept up for six months, the man regaining his health and feeling better than he ever had in his life. But the devil was getting awfully tired of it, and one night he appeared to the man, looking haggard and careworn.
“If you don’t object,” he said, “we will cancel our contract.”
“What’s the matter?” said the man.
“Well, the truth is,” said the devil, “poplar men are not so scarce in hell as they used to be. They have gotten up these associations and price agreements, and they are a good thing for me. They meet and solemnly pledge themselves to maintain the price lifts and then all rush out and see which can cut it first and deepest. This, with the way a good many of them manipulate grades, is bringing me a good harvest. Such being the case, I have decided as you are a pretty good fellow, to let you off.”
“But I don’t want off,” said the man, I am very well satisfied as it is. I still have twelve years and insist on the fulfillment of the contract.”
Then the devil flew into a great rage and cursed and swore frightfully. “I didn’t agree,” he snarled, “to furnish money to run a saw mill in this d—d country. I proposed 168 to furnish all the money you could spend, but the understanding was that it was to be spent in a legitimate way. What do you take me for, anyhow? You can have all the money you’ve had, but I tell you, you can’t have any more. I wouldn’t feed this thing for twelve years more for any consideration. It would bankrupt hell. I tell you the thing is off.” And he disappeared in a flash of fire and puff of smoke.
The next day the man went down to the bank and found it closed. The banker had disappeared, he was told, taking with him all the assets of the bank and had probably gone to Canada.
So there was nothing for the man to do but to make the best of it, which he proceeded to do. He sold all his lumber, his mill, his railroad and timberlands, realizing a large sum of money, which he took over into Ohio and invested in one of the finest farms in the state. Then he married and settled down upon it and reared a large family of sturdy sons. When he came to die he called those sons about him and made them solemnly pledge themselves never to have anything to do, either directly or indirectly, with the lumber business. Having secured their pledge, he died happy.
169
BATTLING IN MUD.
_______________
I have been reading the “Boys of ’76,” which is a history of the American Revolution in narrative form. I had not read a history of that memorable war since I was a boy and in reading it one thing that greatly impressed me was the fact that nearly all the battles were fought and nearly all the hard marches made in inclement weather. I suppose Washington knew what he was doing, but on the face of it, it seems bad management to select a time for crossing the Delaware River when the river was full of floating blocks of ice and when it was cold as the dickens and snowing and blowing so terribly. And nearly every march he made was made in the mud and nearly every battle was fought in weather unfit for man or beast to be outdoors.
Why didn’t Washington wait until some pleasant summer night if he wanted to cross the Delaware? And instead of making those terrible marches through mud and rain, why didn’t he wait until the roads had dried up and he had some pleasant spring weather? And 170 worse than all, I read where his soldiers had no shoes and he had them marching through the snow, the sharp crust of which cut their feet so that they left a bloody trail. Of course, if the men had no shoes and no money they had to go barefooted, but in the name of sense, if they had no shoes, why didn’t they wait until summer to do their marching? I went barefooted myself every summer until I was eighteen years old, and it was cool and pleasant, but it was and is a matter of pride to me that nobody ever saw me running around in the snow without shoes. And it was a matter of pride to Uncle John, too. “I am trying to do my part by you,” he often said, “and I hope you will be a credit to me. I am not rich, but I have a certain amount of family pride and when the first snow comes I want you, if you have no shoes, to stay in the house.” And I always did. It was understood between us, of course, that frost didn’t count, or even a light skift of snow coming in the early autumn. Once winter set in for good, however, shoes had to come.
And I believe that had my Uncle John been in Washington’s place he would not have allowed his soldiers to march through the snow without any shoes. I believe he would have had sufficient national pride to have kept his soldiers in their tents until spring opened. Down in Indiana, in my Uncle John’s time, it was considered bad form to go barefooted in the winter, and he was a great stickler for form. For a poor man he had rather aristocratic notions, and being raised in such an atmosphere, I may have imbibed some mistaken ideas as to what constitutes real gentility; for, in spite of my broad and liberal philosophy, there are things against which my nature revolts as being more or less vulgar. And going barefooted in the winter is one of them.
171Another thing which offended me in that account of the Revolutionary War was the bad taste of General Marion in inviting the British officer to dine with him when he had nothing to eat but sweet potatoes. Uncle John would never have done that. It was one of his unwritten laws that if we were not in position to furnish guest with fresh meat of some kind none was invited. Chicken if we can, rabbit if we must, was Uncle John’s watchword. I will never forget the time the preacher came to dine with us one Sunday and we had nothing to set before him but fried bacon and boiled turnips. Uncle John was nearly bored to death. We had a chicken all ready, locked in the woodshed, but on Sunday night a minx got in and destroyed the chicken root and branch. Uncle John took the preacher out and showed him the hole where the minx crawled in and also the bones and feathers scattered about, but the preacher was offended. He was keenly disappointed and showed it, and Uncle John was nearly heartbroken.
Of course, I am broad enough now to admit that I may be prejudiced, but with my strict bringing up the idea of inviting company to dinner when you have nothing but sweet potatoes to set before them jars my system. I always believed that Uncle John was too strict, but he was as he was, and, moreover, was looked upon as an authority in all matters of etiquette. I remember a practice used to prevail of blowing into the end of the pepper box to make it give down more freely, but Uncle John set his face against it and the practice was stamped out.
Of course, the foregoing is only “joshing.” I know why Washington crossed the Delaware River with his half-clad troops amid the floating ice. I know and so do you why he made his long forced marches through the mud and fought most of his battles in inclement 172 weather. He was fighting an enemy much stronger than himself. A well-clothed, well-armed, well-fed, well-drilled enemy, and his only chance for overcoming his handicap was by marching when the enemy thought marching impossible, and attacking him when he was unprepared. The fact that his soldiers had no shoes and had to subsist on sweet potatoes was not allowed to deter them. And in the end the sprit and determination of Washington’s army overcame its handicap and it won out. Poorly clothed, poorly armed and half fed as they were, Washington’s soldiers were more than a match for the strongest nation in the world at that time.
When I had finished reading the history of that heroic struggle, it was eleven o’clock at night, and although I had presence of mind enough to go to bed I could not go to sleep for nearly fifteen minutes, but lay thinking about it. What a fight those desperate, determined men made! And what a glorious victory they won!
And in the battle of life to-day there are men making just such a fight as Washington’s army made, using the same tactics, making up for what they lack in strength by a double amount of nerve and endurance. And there are others making the same kind of a fight the British made. They have ample resources and feel that they don’t need to cross their rivers when they are full of ice nor make their marches in the mud. And to-day, as in Washington’s time, the men with the nerve and determination, who are willing to live on sweet potatoes and march barefooted in the snow, are winning the battles.
It is not the talented boy who makes the successful man, as a rule, he depends too much on his talent. It isn’t the son of the rich man who gets to the front in these days. He depends too much on his wealth. Give 173 me the boy or man with the grim determination to win, who is willing to march in the mud and leave his blood on the snow if necessary, and no opposition, consisting merely of wealth and talent, can keep him down. I’ve seen that proven time and again and so have you. And as I lay in my bed and thought of all those things I couldn’t help but feel bitter at Uncle John for pampering me the way he did.
“Oh, well,” says somebody, “the Americans never could have whipped the British if it had not been for the help France gave them and the friendly sentiment of a great part of the English people.”
That’s so, but whenever a nation or an individual makes the kind of fight that Washington and his army made they won’t lack for friends.
174
ILLUSIONS.
_______________
Do you know that nearly all the pleasures of life come from its illusions? Now, don’t get mad because I ask you such a simple question. Of course you know it. You’ve thought of it many a time and the question was not asked because it was thought you didn’t know the answer, but because it was thought you did.
The writer who writes of things people never thought of is not a popular writer. He writes over people’s heads; but the man who expresses thoughts and ideals, sentiments and aspirations common to most people, which have not been expressed before, or who expresses them better, or presents them more nearly as they occur to most people, is the man who holds his old readers and gets new ones. A fellow likes to read a thing and say to himself: “Now that expresses my ideas exactly. 175 I have thought just as he does for a good many years and am glad someone has had the time and opportunity to put my thoughts before the public. That is a pretty smart fellow — nearly as smart as I am.”
But the man who talks about things that nobody ever thought about, and tries to ram and cram his thoughts down the public throat, gets himself disliked. You’ve got to jolly people along, and if you do advance anything new make them believe they originated it.
We are getting away from our subject, but that doesn’t matter particularly. I don’t believe there is very much in it, anyhow.
I don’t see that it makes much difference what a fellow is doing, so long as he is enjoying himself. Many a time I’ve been having a good time, but seeing what I thought was a chance to have a better time I’ve gone away, giving up a sure thing for an uncertainty, and then didn’t have any fun at all. You’ve done the same thing. Of course you have. You’re all right.
It is always well, though, to start somewhere, I remember when I was a boy I would start a-fishing on Saturday afternoon. If I didn’t meet with anything I thought would be more fun than going fishing, I would go fishing. If, however, I met some boys playing marbles I might stop and play marbles; and if I had good luck might play marbles all afternoon. It was always a comfort, though, to know that if I got tired or marbles, or got broke, I could go fishing.
So in carrying on such a discussion as this it is better to have some stated topic to which we may return whenever we feel like it. If in pursuing this topic, however, we come across some by-way of thought that looks inviting, we must be free to follow it, if we like, and see 176 where it leads. And if we want to stop and throw stones at a chipmunk or play “lame soldier” that’s our business.
I don’t believe, though, that there is anything more out in this direction.
As you said at the beginning, “most of the pleasures of life come from its illusions.” The actualities of life are not usually attractive. The happiest period of life is childhood, which is made up almost entirely of illusions. What would childhood be if it were not for the fairies, the giants, Santa Claus, the heroes and heroines of yellow-back novels, and other unrealities? What would youth be were it not for the glamor of romance, love and chivalry? What would manhood be without the illusion of the bliss to be derived from fame and riches?
Nothing.
King Solomon, after he had found that there were no fairies, nor giants, nor Santa Claus; after he had married some three hundred and odd wives in an attempt to find a woman who would love him so she wouldn’t give him fits of a morning when he had a headache and wanted nothing but Bromo Seltzer; after he had found that with all his fame and riches all he could get was the food he ate and the clothes he wore out, and that he couldn’t eat as much nor wear out as much as a hod carrier; King Solomon, I say, as he stood at the end of his life with the ashes of his dead hopes and the debris of his busted illusions lying around him, shook his head and said: All is vanity and vexation of spirit.” Somebody else who had had a similar experience, but had probably not gone the gait that Sol did, declared life to be “flat, stale and unprofitable.”
In reaching those conclusions those men had only arrived at the conclusion which you so aptly expressed when you said: “Most of the pleasures of life come from its 177 illusions.” Only I think your expression the better one and shows a truer conception of the situation. When it comes to condensing a whole volume of philosophy into a sentence you are hard to beat.
Without the hills and vales, the flowers and music, the romance and chivalry, the sunlight and shadows of our illusions the world is “flat, stale and unprofitable,” and all seems “vanity and vexation of spirit.” Where Solomon and the other fellow made their mistake was in allowing themselves to discard their illusions. You and I don’t want to do this. We want to jolly ourselves and everybody else along. And it’s policy, too. An iconoclast is all right in his way, but the man who goes around poking holes in people’s illusions is liable to get a black eye. For almost all the illusions which make a man’s life happy are about himself.
I know an old gentleman, he is past 60, who has been and is one of the happiest men I ever knew, and he has never amounted to anything and never will. His wife, nearly as old as himself, keeps the family by doing plain sewing, but that man, in spite of his sixty years of failure, believes he will yet revolutionize the world, and, bless me, if that patient old slave, his wife, doesn’t think so too.
He is an inventor of engines that won’t run, of machines that won’t work, and the promoter of schemes that come to nothing; and yet he is as full of enthusiasm and of confidence in himself as a boy of twenty. He won’t talk of anything but himself and what he is going to do, and he makes me mighty mad sometimes persisting in this when I want to talk of myself and what I am going to do.
Now, suppose this old gentleman were robbed of his illusions; suppose he could be brought to see exactly what an incompetent failure he is; suppose that, as we sit in the drug store some evening, the power were given me to 178 show him how much abler a man I am than he is, what then? The poor old man would go all to pieces. He’d die in a week, and his old wife with him.
I haven’t the heart to disturb the old man’s illusions, but I’d like it if he would have a little more consideration for mine. He won’t admit that I know anything.
No, dear, gentle, wise and forbearing reader, I know just what you are thinking. You are thinking that it is wrong to disturb a man’s illusions. If he thinks he can sing a song, encourage him in that belief; if he believes he can make a speech, don’t let on. If he believes he is, in some ways, one of the greatest men of the age, and nearly every man does this, tell him all he needs is an opportunity.
When a man gets to see things exactly as they are it makes him morose and bilious. And unless a man is a very able and upright man, such as you are and as I am, it is a good thing for him to jolly him along.
And now let us try our hand at a little poetry.
My old valise,
My dear old friend,
With the broken handle
And caved-in end,
With the scars of many travels
On your paunchy sides,
My lone companion
Of many lonesome rides,
If you could speak
Strange stories you could tell —
But the time has come
To say farewell.
179
It is hard, old friend,
Thus to let you go,
After all that’s passed,
Yet it must be so.
For you have grown
To be a shabby thing,
With your broken handle,
Mended with a string.
And Kimball says
That you’re a sad disgrace
And I must let you go
Or he will mash my face.*
So now, old friend,
I lay you on the shelf,
And the measure I mete to you
Will be meted to myself
Some day ere long,
For I, too, am showing wear,
A gray streak or two
Showing in my hair.
In a few more years
I, too, will reach the end,
And side by side we’ll rest
Upon the shelf, old friend.
_________________________
* That’s a little strong, but couldn’t make it rhyme any other way.
180
THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.
_______________
Did you ever stop to think how it comes that we are not all savages, living in caves and chasing one another with clubs?
That’s the way our forefathers lived in the good old times and if everybody had been like some of the people I could name we would be living that way to-day.
When a man has to learn by his own personal experience and observation, and by nothing else, his life is not long enough for him to acquire much knowledge. It sort of tickles me to hear a man blow about being independent, able to row his own boat and all that. Why, bless the man’s soul, if it were not for what other have done for him he’d be a chattering monkey and live in a tree.
181You remember when you were a little shaver and went to school, one of the first things you learned was that “The earth is round like a ball.” Now, that’s easy, isn’t it? There is scarcely a child of six in the United States who doesn’t know that, but it probably took then thousand years of patient, plodding progress for our forefathers to find it out.
And now all there is to it is that a teacher arises in her place, in a schoolroom heated by steam, in a school building constructed on the most approved hygienic principles, and announces to forty or fifty little shavers that “The earth is round like a ball.” Straightway those little children know more about the formation of the earth than did King Solomon in his palmiest days. For Solomon in all his glory believed that the word was flat and rested on a rock and that rock on another rock and that there were rocks on rocks all the way down.
Then any child of three years can strike and match and start a fire. Yet how many centuries elapsed, from the time the first man made up his mind that he was a man and not a monkey, before the human race learned that a fire was possible?
Many centuries no doubt. I imagine that the lightning came out of the thunder clouds at times and fired the forest and that our wild forefathers fell to the earth and worshiped the bright, red flame as a god. It came down from heaven and devoured the trees, so what could the poor devils think but that it was a god?
In the old Roman mythology there is an account of the first use of fire by man. An old witch had produced fire by some means and kept it burning in a cave, guarded by a great dragon. One day when the dragon slept a wolf crept into the cave and seizing a lighted brand in his mouth ran out with it. One of our husky grandsires 182 knocked him on the head and got his burning fagot, piled more wood on top of it and had fire to burn.
Now, suppose this man had been a selfish, bigoted man, who cared nothing for progress. Suppose he had taken his precious fire back into his cave and had stood guard with a club. Suppose he had allowed his good luck to make him proud and reserved and he had warned his children not to allow the neighbors’ children to be at all familiar and not to play with monkeys under any consideration. Suppose he had refused to allow any of his neighbors to have any of his fire.
The result would have been that some morning he would have awakened to find that he had forgotten to get in any dry wood and that it was raining outside. He would have tried frantically to ignite his war club, but without avail, and in the end his fire would have gone out, his pride would have been humbled and the monkeys would have thrown cocoanuts at his innocent children.
But he wasn’t that kind of a man. He wasn’t a clam. He was a broad-gauge, liberal kind, something like Tom Stone or Frank Smith, and he gave each of his neighbors a little piece of fire. He didn’t put on any lugs either, I bet, but just wore foxskin apron and a generous smile, like the rest of the boys.
Don’t you know that across the abyss of the soundless ages my heart goes out to that man? I wish he were here now. I’d get Hopkins to give him that suit of clothes and I’d take him out and show him what fire is doing for this country, and for the world. I’d show him the plant of the Illinois Steel Company, where the fire he gave melts iron and molds it into all the countless uses. I’d show him the locomotive flying across the country at a mile a minute. I’d show him the brilliant illumination of the city’s night and make it plain to him 182 that all the fabric of our civilization rests upon the fire which he wrested from the wolf and gave to the world. He didn’t realize what he was doing of course. None of us ever knows what he is doing.
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The point I started I to make is that the Tree of Knowledge under which the human race finds shelter to-day did not grow in a night. Bless your heart, its been watered with the tears of countless thousands of generations and has drawn its sap from the bones of martyrs. And no selfish man ever did a thing for it.
Galileo discovered that the earth is not flat and stationary. He had his eyes burned out for it, by the way, but that is a minor incident. He made a telescope and turned it up to the sky and the secret was revealed to him. But Galileo is not entitled to all the credit. Indeed, his was a very small portion of the achievement. The naked savage who gave fire to the world, either by stealing it from a wolf or by rubbing two pieces of wood together, took the greatest step. Then the individual who found that certain substances, melted by heat, could be made into a transparent substance which we call glass took another long step. And I have an idea that the knowledge that when you look at an object through glass from the convex side it looks larger, and when you look from the concave side it seems smaller, drifted about for a good many years before Galileo discovered by, accident, without doubt, that by arranging several lens together and looking through all of them at once, things that were very far away could be brought very near. From that the arranging them in a tube was no great step.
I imagine Galileo and his friends had a good deal of fun the first day or two looking through the telescope. 184 Then at night he thought he’d go out and see what the stars looked like.
And now he was on the verge of the great discovery; the great discovery which the human race had been thousands and thousands of years growing up to. The discovery which the man who stole the fire from the wolf and divided with his neighbors made possible, which every man of the countless generations who had acquired a bit of knowledge which he had imparted to his fellowmen had helped along. And in which no selfish, self-seeking man, who lived and died for himself alone, had any part.
I wonder if the stars, looking down upon the earth with their bright, twinkling eyes, saw the little man stepping out into the open with his black tube under his arm to discover their secret, and what they thought about it. I wonder if it were not given to the wolf-man to look down upon the scene from somewhere, his wild eyes gleaming through his shaggy hair. I wonder if the man’s wife didn’t scold him for wasting his time when she needed him to tend the baby while she washed the dishes.
Anyhow it was a momentous occasion. And I bet that when Galileo took his first peep at the heavens he was astonished. The stars were not little lanterns hung out in the sky to circle around the earth and give it light, or add beauty and variety to the somber robe of Night. Great Scotland, no! They were great luminous planets and their distance from the earth must be something tremendous that they appeared so small to the naked eye. Then I expect he called his wife and she took a look; and maybe two or three of the neighbors dropped in and looked and wondered.
After they had all gone and everybody was in bed Galileo came out again and looked and looked. Then he went in and, making a light in whatever manner they 185 made light in those days, began making some calculations.
For while the world had been finding out about fire and glass and telescopes and things, the science of mathematics had been coming along also. Galileo didn’t deserve much credit for what he knew about mathematics. If he had been forced to begin at first principles he probably would not have learned enough in his lifetime to count up to ten. The man who first discovered that two cocoanuts were more property and more desirable than one was the originator of the science of mathematics. From this as a starting point the world had advanced steadily until, in Galileo’s time, the science of mathematics was very well advanced indeed.
Thus with all the knowledge which the world had been thousands of years in accumulating to draw upon, Galileo easily figured out that the stars were at such tremendous distances from the earth that it was a physical impossibility that they should circle around it in twenty-four hours and that so far as their relation to the earth was concerned the stars were practically stationary. There could be but one solution to the matter. The world was turning around and around, and I’ll bet that after Galileo made that discovery he didn’t sleep any more that night.
That’s how it comes that the teacher is able to inform the little chaps that “The earth is round like a ball, and revolves on its axis once in twenty-four hours.”
I have endeavored in the foregoing, dear, long-suffering reader, to impress upon you that we are not so smart as you think we are. How much knowledge have you that someone else didn’t acquire and tell you? Mighty little, I venture. And do you consider that you are under no obligation to anyone for all this store of knowledge, which lifts you out of the condition of the naked savage? 186 I think you are. You wouldn’t go through life accepting all the benefits of society and shirking all its obligations, would you? You are not one of the fellows who is willing that someone else should have all the public spirit, and foot all the bills, are you? You don’t believe in letting the other fellow support the churches, the citizens’ leagues, the newspapers and all the other good things which are discharging the obligations of this generation to keep the world moving? Of course I know you are not and do not.
I know you are all right, but maybe you know some fellow who is just the kind we have in mind. I bet you could name one or two right now.
* * *
Another thing I wish to impress upon you is that the world does not advance by leaps and bounds. Our civilization was built up after the manner of a coral island. The coral island is formed by the skeletons of countless millions of tiny insects. These insects congregate in a colony at the bottom of the ocean. A generation dies and leaves its bones. Another generation flourishes and passes away, each tiny skeleton raising the island by so much, until at last it appears above the water. Then the action of the elements provides a thin layer of soil, birds bring seeds and lo! there is an island covered with verdure.
And that’s the way civilization is built. You don’t need to wait until you can add a whole ton to the edifice. No man has ever done much. All you can do is to leave your bones; if you are a big man your bones make a bigger pile than the bones of a smaller man. But when some men die there are no remains. In fact they leave a hole which was not there when they came into the world. They lived and absorbed and left nothing.
187
THE APPETITE FOR WORK.
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I never could understand why it is that going down is made so much easier than going up. Why is it that it’s so much fun to go fishing so little fun to split stovewood? Ah! you say, it is not always so. There are those who would rather work than go fishing. I suppose that is so, but why should the man who would rather work, and does work, simply because he’d rather, accumulate wealth and fame, while the man who follows his inclination and goes fishing remains poor and obscure? Is there any justice in that? I can’t help it because I’d rather go fishing any more than he deserves credit because he likes to work. Yet everybody looks on me with contempt and loathing, and pats the other fellow on the back and calls him a boy wonder.
I feel about work as the bad little boy did about his breadcrusts. His father chided him because he did not eat his crusts, but hid them under the edge of his plate.
“I eat my crusts, papa,” said the good little brother. “I like crusts.”
“Well, here,” said the bad boy, “if you like crusts, you may have mine.”
187So it is as regards work. The fellow who likes to work is perfectly welcome to do my share. And he no doubt is willing to do it provided he gets the pay, but why should he get pay for doing that which he likes to do while I get nothing at all for doing that which I like to do?
Suppose that man who would rather work than go fishing was compelled to fish ten hours a day, every day in the year, winter and summer, rain or shine, and could only get off a few days in the spring to do a little work. How’d he like that? And suppose if he didn’t get to fishing at 7 o’clock every morning and fish just as hard as ever he could every minute of the time, he’d be discharged and have nothing to do but to work, and get no pay for it? If conditions could be reversed so as to place the man who loves to work in that position he would understand how a lot of us fellows who like to fish feel about work.
Still, we may be arguing from a false premise. I believe that very few people like to work simply for work’s sake. I cannot conceive of any man who would go out and without a just cause commit a lot of labor. It’s the Greed for Gain that drives people to work. The habit is never so strong at the beginning, but unless a man keeps a tight rein on himself it grows and grows, until finally he loses all control of himself and just simply works all the time.
A little work if indulged in judiciously is not a bad thing, but a man wants to watch himself. If a young man should come to me for advice as to how best to handle this work question, I would first endeavor to ascertain by judicious questioning just how strong a hold the appetite for work had on him. A good many people, especially young men who have not rubbed much against 189 the world, have a sneaking desire to work, but are ashamed of it. And they will go ahead and hide their shame while the habit grows and grows on them until it is too late to do anything for them. This is false modesty. I intend in this article to talk frankly to the young men — frankly and for their own good. I want them to look the matter squarely in the face and be honest with themselves.
Do you, when you awake in the morning, feel impelled to get out of bed hurriedly and build the fires and cut a lot of wood before breakfast? This is rather an unusual symptom, but is a certain indication that you need treatment. I know of nothing in this case so effective as a strong exercise of will power. Turn over and try to go to sleep again. Lie perfectly still and fix your mind on nothing at all. That is one plan — but there are various methods of inducing sleep, each having its strong advocates. The following plan is old, but is as good as any. It consists in closing your eyes firmly and then imagining a flock of sheep in a field. After you get your flock imagined start them to jumping the fence with the old ram sheep in the lead, and count them as they go over. It takes a little practice to get the ram started in the lead, and after a hundred or two have gone over I have observed a tendency that the sheep all become rams. But those are minor details, and many a time I have gone triumphantly to sleep with a big ram sheep poised in midair, half way over the fence.
There are other good ways of inducing sleep, but I will not enter into them at present. Nearly everybody you meet has some particular way which he claims is better than any other, and I have made it a practice to try them all impartially, but I do not advise you to do the same. They are all about alike in results. I will keep 190 on trying them, and if they are exceptionally good will let you know. The main idea is to sleep until breakfast in any way you can. If you cannot sleep until that time you should lie as still as possible and endeavor to convey the impression that you are asleep, anyhow. This, too, requires some skill and practice. You must bear in mind that excessively loud snoring is not natural in the morning, and is liable to arouse suspicion. But enough on this point.
Another question I would ask you is as to whether your appetite for work is stronger before or after meals? It is my observation that when a man’s stomach is empty his mind becomes more or less morbid, and he is liable to imagine a necessity for work where none exists. This is not an invariable rule, however. Sometimes a man will be perfectly quiet and restful, may be taking a little gentle sleep, until he gets a full meal, and will then be seized with an uncontrollable desire to go out somewhere and do a piece of work. As a rule, though, a man can rest with less effort after meals than before. So I would advise you to eat heartily whenever you can get anything to eat. If you cannot get anything to eat a broad leather or canvas belt, passed around the waist and buckled snugly, will give some relief, and may enable you to hold on until something turns up.
I will close this brief article with a few general instructions.
Be careful of your diet. Eat as much as possible. It doesn’t matter much what.
Take a little gentle exercise each day. Swinging in a hammock is the best outdoor exercise, especially if you can get someone to swing you. For inclement weather I would recommend a game of checkers with someone you can beat without much effort. Checkers 191 is a gentle mental stimulant, and pushing the pieces over the board tends to develop the muscles of the arms and shoulders.
In winter be careful to keep your feet warm by toasting your shins by a hot fire.
A great deal depends on making the proper selection of a wife. German girls make excellent wives, especially if they have money. Select one wide between the eyes and of strong and stocky build. Riches may take to themselves wings and it is only the part of prudence to select a strong and hardy woman for your wife, so that if her money should become spent she can take in washing and things.
I don’t think of anything else in this connection.
