From Cornfield Philosophy, by C. D. Strode, Illustrated, Chicago: The Blakely Printing Co., 1902; pp. 195-224.
192
A SCHEME THAT FAILED.
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“Did yez niver hear av the attimpt to change the name av Goose Island? Be Gob, an ’twas an unholy thrick, an’ but fur the prompt protest av the ould settlers, the families that came here back in the thirties, in the days whin Chicago was only a suburb av Goose Island, ’twould have been done, an a disgrace ’twould have been.
“’Twas Charley Mears that started it. He’s a good man, is Charley, but he had not the same feelin’s fur the ould island as had those whose ancisthers had sittled there fifty years agone. Charley was well liked by the ould-timers, but he was looked upon as a newcomer. Why, there’s those on Goose Island as kin trace their ancisthers back ti the days av the Irish kings, an’ there’s goats whose pidigree comes own from the days of Brian Boru. Thin Mears wint asthray among the driss coats an’ fol de rols av the North Side. An’ he took a notion to change the name to Ogden Island an’ he got up a petition to the city council.
“Thin the ould sittlers were agitayted. We held a matin’ in the saloon av Misther Michael Myers, an’ there 193 were the O’Boyles, the Monahans, the Moriarities, an’ all the ould sittlers gathered in, an’ Clarry O’Boyle made a spach, an’ so did Misther Moriarity, an’ all av the old sittlers protested and declared themselves ferninst the change av the name of Goose Island. Misther O’Boyle presided, an’ Misther Michael Myers served the drinks wid his own hand. An’ there was much indignaytion expressed. An’ thin when we had all expressed our contempt av the name av Ogden Island, siveral spaches had been made, Misther O’Boyle drew up a petition to the honorable, the mayor and city council av the city of Chicago. An’ the petition set forth that we, the ould sittlers av the Island av Goose, some av whom were disindents av Irsih kings, an’ whose grandfathers had sittled on the island fifty years agone, when Chicago was only a suburb av Goose Island, did petition the honorable, the mayor and city council av the city av Chicago, county av Cook, state av Illinois, not to change the name av the island to Ogden Island. An’ the petition said if the city government does perpetrate this injustice upon the ould sittlers av Goose Island, thin the ould sittlers are ferninst the city government and will overthrow it at the next convintion.
“An’ the petition further called the attintion av the honorable, the mayor and city council, to the fact that Goose Island had always been a moral an’ respictable community. That it had obeyed the laws av the city, and that while there was throuble ferninst Goose Island an’ over beyant, there was niver throuble on Goose Island, and that it was a dacint an’ law-abidin’ sittlemint. But, the petition said, av the name was changed to Ogden, we, the old sittlers, would feel that we were disgraced in our ould age, and would move away and let the island go to the divil entoirly.
194“There was more to the petition which I don’t raymimber, for that wuz long ago, an’ thin we all signed. An’ there were the names av Clarry O’Boyle, an’ Terrence O’Donovan, an’ Michael Myers, an’ Timothy Moriarity, an’ all av the ould sittlers. An’ thin I lost the run av things until nixt mornin’, but ’twas a great meetin’ av outraged citizens.
“An’ well I raymimber the night the petitions were presinted to the city council. An’ there were the mayor an’ the city council; an’ there were Charley Mears in his driss coat; an’ there were Clarry O’Boyle wid fire in his eye an’ the petition in his hand; an’ there were all us ould sittlers in a body fur to registher our prothest aginst the change av the name av Goose Island.
“First, some galoot rid the petition av Misther Mears to change the name to Ogden Island. Thin our petition was handed to Ed Cullerton. Ah, that’s the bye to see a point all in a second! An’ he jumped up an’ sez:
“ ‘Yer honor,’ sez he, “I have here in me hand a petition which I must read to this council. ’Tis the petition av the ould sittleers av Goose Island, settin’ forth that they are ferninst the change av the name av Goose Island.’
“Thin Misther Cullerton rid our petition and thin he made a spach. He said:
“ ‘Misther mayor,’ sez he, ‘is it possible that this council would perpetrate sich an injustice upon the ould and rispected citizens av Goose Island? Here,’ sez he, ‘at the head av this list is the name av Clarence O’Boyle. Now ye may not know Clarence O’Boyle, but ye all know Billy O’Boyle, who runs a ristaurant up the alley. ‘An’ ,’ sez he, ‘ye all know Larry O’Boyle, who is a member av this body. An’ Larry O’Boyle is a domned nice mon. 195 An’ Clarence O’Boyle is a domned nice mon. An’ here is Michael Myers, whose ancisthers sittled on Goose Island before you an’ I was borned. Misther Mayor,’ An’ he wint on an’ said a good worrud fer all av us. He sed that our forefathers had handed the name av Goose Island down to us, an’ he wanted that we should spind the remaynder av our days in pace beneath our vine an’ fig tree, an’ not be turned out homeless in our ould days. ’Twas a grate spach.
“Thin the council did something. I niver rightly knew what, that meant that they was unanimous in favor that the name av the island should remain Goose Island, an’ so it is to this day.”
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I had a notion to write that “Where are we drifting?” but I rather like the word “whither.” The word “where” is somewhat common, it seems to me, and there is no need to be common when there is no need of it. “Whither” is an older word, and while it means the same, is now seldom used except in poetry or in some very serious and weighty discussion. The article which follows is not poetry, but is a very serious and weighty discussion, so I use the word “whither.”
It may occur to you that the question “Whither are we drifting?” is one that had better be let alone. It is not always well to know what is in store for us. If I had known when I left school what was before me in life, if I had known how much hard work I would have to do and how little profit and glory I would get out of 196 it, I never could have had the courage to do anything. I didn’t know, however. I firmly believed that big things were in store for me, and I went cheerfully and exultantly forward, spurred on by my hopes and illusions. Even now, if a man should come and guarantee to tell me exactly what would happen to me during the remainder of my life, I would tell him to go to the devil.
So dear, kind reader, you no doubt feel uneasiness when I start in to answer “Whither are we drifting?” You’d rather not know, maybe. You’d rather go on, hoping for big things and getting little ones, and then getting fate to renew its promissory note for big things in the future, than to know absolutely that little, petty things are all that you will ever get.
* * *
The one yearning of my life had been to rest; and all the work I have ever done has been that I might win some shady, cozy nook in life, where I might look complacently down upon the toiling world, but I have never found the place.
You have been toiling along a hot and dusty road sometime, maybe, and have looked across at a tree-clad hill where the breezes made billows of green and gold, but when you had come up to the height you found that the hill was only pleasant viewed from a distance, that the shade had killed the grass and that the ground was strewn with rotting leaves and dead branches. There is always something the matter. If there is shade there is no grass; if there is grass there is no shade; and if you do occasionally come to a place which seems to answer all the requirements for a happy, peaceful abiding place, you find it occupied by some graybeard who ha spent all his life bringing it to perfection and who is so old and so full of cricks and pains that he couldn’t enjoy himself 197 in Paradise. It you are young and have the capacity for enjoyment, you must work; when you are old and an afford to enjoy yourself your capacity for enjoyment has gone; a little draft gives you a cold, a little dampness gives you rheumatism, and if you eat and drink what you like you have gout or dyspepsia.
When you were a boy and were hoeing corn, sprouting stumps or shocking wheat in the hot sun of a summer day, you envied the man whom you saw driving luxuriously along the road in his top buggy. Now that you are a man driving along the road in your carriage, you know that the road between the hedges is hotter than the fields; the dust rolls up and settles all over you; the flies bother your horse and make bad driving; there is a note to meet at the end of the drive and no money to meet it with; you have sold a lot of lumber and prices have advanced since, or you have bought a lot and prices have gone down; your wife is sick, or you have a son or daughter who has gone wrong, and you look at the boy hauling haycocks in the field, and envy him. You think of the swimming hole in the creek, with the watermelon patch in reach, of the long winter evenings spent around the open fire, of the happy, care free days, and you envy him.
And he looks across and envies you.
* * *
In my journeys through life I have observed the things set forth in the foregoing, and I have marveled at what seemed to me the contrariness of this funny old world. When I saw the poor men envy the rich man his dinner and the rich man envy the poor man his appetite, it seemed to me that there was a screw loose somewhere, and that somehow nature was out of time.
198But now, after playing at cross purposes with myself and Providence, until I am getting well along toward forty, I find that I have had the wrong idea all the time. The fault is not with the world; there is no screw loose in the machinery of creation; no discord in the music of the spheres.
The fault is with myself; the loose screw is in my own gearing; myself and not nature is out of tune.
* * *
Whatever is, is right.
That statement is not original with me. Alexander Pope stated it a century or so ago, and while space will not permit me to prove it is right, I can do it, and if you will come to Chicago some day and take me out to lunch, I will make it clear to you.
Whatever is, is right, and a man gets about what he deserves in this country, and one gets about as much as another. Happiness comes from within and not from without. A man may be happy in a log cabin or miserable in a brownstone front.
All a man can do is his best, and all he needs to do is to do his best, and leave the rest to the Lord. That is the philosophy I am working on nowadays. I don’t envy anybody except the man who can live closer to that philosophy than I can. I have given up looking for a nice shady place to rest in, where care and trouble cannot come, for I don’t believe there are any such places. I am not putting off enjoying myself until sometime in the future, when I can work ten hours a day at it; but am enjoying myself as I go along, and I am gaining flesh and, my wife says, getting better looking every day.
A thing is beautiful or agreeable only by comparison. If a man lives among roses they give him no pleasure, 199 but there are times and places where a fresh, sweet rose is a holy thing. Rest is only rest when it follows labor. People who do too much resting become very tired of it, and must have rest from resting. It is a pleasure to have an abundance of food if you have a good appetite, and a hungry man will get many times the amount of pleasure from a meal of pork and beans than an overfed epicure will get from a meal of “pate de foi gras,” whatever that is.
It is the contrasts, the variety, which make life worth living. The man who has watermelon everyday becomes very tired of watermelon, and if you had nothing but joy for a solid year you would get so sick of joy that you’d go out and pick a quarrel with the first man you met, so as to get into trouble. It isn’t any fun to rest unless you are tired, and the real epicurean rester will labor enough to get tired enough to enjoy his rest.
I tell you that there is nothing in life so sweet as resting. Resting is my long suit, and my favorite hymn is that one which speaks of going “to where there is rest, sweet rest.” That hymn and the hope it holds out have done much to keep me religious. It seems to me that there is no pleasure in life equal to stretching tired limbs in repose. Then if our conscience is clear and you have had a square meal, you are as near heaven as you will get in this life. Next to the pleasure of resting when you are tired of labor, is the pleasure of returning to labor when you are tired of resting.
* * *
From all of which I conclude that a man should, if he wants to enjoy his labor and his rest, mix them judiciously. If he makes the mistake of working all the time until he reaches a certain point in life, and then doing 200 all his resting in a bunch, neither his labor nor his rest will bring him contentment. It is on the same principle as a man trying to do without anything to eat all week, so he can eat all day Sunday. The result is that he nearly starves to death for six day and then eats so much on the seventh that he makes himself sick and is miserable all the time.
I do not enjoy working merely for work’s sake, but I know I must labor if I would enjoy my rest: and when I am tired of doing nothing labor gives me rest from resting. I cannot say that I enjoy trouble and misfortune, but I do not repine at them as I did before I came to a realization that a man must suffer some trouble and misfortune if he would get the fullest measure of enjoyment out of his peace and prosperity when they come, as they surely will. So that really a man’s labor is a portion of his rest and his pain a portion of his pleasure.
“Sweet is leisure after labor.
Sweet is pleasure after pain.”
I don’t know whether I make myself clear, but this philosophy of rest is a beautiful philosophy, and is really all that a man needs as a guide in life. In order to enjoy your repose you must have done your full duty as a man. If when your day’s work is done you feel you have shirked your duty or have treated a fellow man unfairly, your conscience scatters salt and horsehair between your sheets.
I have a boy growing up, and nothing pleases me so much as to observe his strong inherent love of repose. Some fathers might condemn this trait in their son’s character, but I applaud it. I tell him there is nothing in the world so pleasant and restful as rest, but in order to obtain the real epicurean flavor he must do his duty as a 201 man. Through that boy’s love of perfect repose I hope to make a good man of him.
When I started to write this article it was my intention to discuss the question “Whither are we drifting?” The condition the world is getting into as a result of so much and such rapid civilization is causing me uneasiness, and I felt it my duty to discuss the matter with you. I don’t know how I managed to wander so far from the subject, but I’m off the track altogether and cannot get back without much difficulty; and, indeed, I hardly believe I can connect at all at this end. Besides, the subject, “Whither are we drifting?” is a large subject, and I have used up so much space already that I’ll have to take it up some other time.
This article should be entitled, “The Philosophy of Rest,” and could, with a little changing, be made to fit that title, but the first of it is in type and I cannot change it now, so let it go.
If a boy starts out to pick blackberries in Jones’ woods pasture, and tells his mother he’s going to Jones’ pasture, and tells the boys and everybody he meets that he is going to Jones’ pasture, and then in going along Smith’s fence he finds so many berries he fills his pail, and does not go to Jones’ pasture at all, he has not done unwisely. He might have passed all those berries and when he got to Jones pasture have found none.
So some men, had they written a head “Whither are we drifting?” are such slaves to custom and conventionality, that they would have gone straight to that subject, looking neither to the right nor left, paying no attention to the berries in the fence corners.
I am no such slave to custom and conventionality as that, and if I filled my basket before getting to Jones’ pasture, I am glad of it.
202
JERRY WHALEN’S STORY.
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There was once a man who lived down in Mississippi. This was not all he did, though, for in addition to living down in Mississippi, he ran a saw mill and “carried on” a general store. Now for a man to do all those things besides living in Mississippi marks him as a man of much force. Merely living down in Mississippi is, according to Jerry, a job for a grown man, let alone doing anything else.
As stated, however, this man was of a forceful character, and conducted quite a large business. He not only ran a saw mill of his own, but he went and been, done and gone and bought lumber from all the other mills in his vicinity. This lumber he would pile up on his switch until he got enough for a mess. Then some New York or Chicago or Buffalo man would come down and buy it and measure it out.
One thing that always vexed the Mississippian was that the lumber never held out when the foreign buyer 203 measured it. Those buyers were always smooth, nice, agreeable men. It might be that butter would have melted in their mouths, but they didn’t look it; but somehow the lumber never held out.
Well, time passed on in a way that time has, even down in Mississippi, and it began to be remarked that the Mississippian was getting old — quite old and feeble. And still the Chicago and Buffalo buyers came and went, leaving consternation and mill culls in their wake.
One day, while the Chicago and Buffalo men were out in the yard measuring, the old Mississippian had a very bad attack of something or other, and the doctor told him he would have to die. The old man received the news calmly. He dropped back among his pillows and gazed at the rafters, thinking about — well, I don’t know what the old man thought about. The doctor will pass a similar verdict on me some day, and I will lie back among my pillows and then I’ll know what the old man thought.
Finally he aroused himself. “If I am going to die,” he said, “let it be out there on the old porch, where I can see the sun set behind the hills again.”
So they lifted him out of bed and carried him out to his old armchair. Down at the switch he could see the Chicago man and the Buffalo man loading lumber (Jerry being a New York man always called these two men “the Chicago man and the Buffalo man”).
Anyhow, the old man’s failing sight discerned them, and he asked that they be sent for. When they came, he had chairs placed for them on either side of his own, and addressing them in a kindly, fatherly fashion, said: “Boys, the doctor says I am going to die. I don’t know as I care much. In fact, I am pretty near glad of it, for life is a hard struggle down here, and if I thought that I 204 would be allowed to enter the Great White Gate, I would be willing and glad to go; but I have fears and doubts. I have not been the man nor lived the life I might have. And I have no plea to offer, for my mother was a pious, God-fearing woman who taught me the Bible and its lessons without ceasing. Time and again she read to me the story of Christ’s life and death. ‘Live and die like Him,’ she said.
“Now, boys,” the old man faltered, “I have not lived as I should. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. I have not lived like Christ, but I have called you here and ask you as a parting favor to the old man to sit still for a few minutes, so that, if I have not lived like Christ, I can at least die like Him — between two thieves.”
Then the old Mississipian expired.
205
ABOUT JONES’ PASTURE.
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In another article, if you remember, we started to Jones’ pasture, an as the French say, did not arrive. To-day I mean to organize another excursion and we will certainly reach our destination. We have rambled together in a good many places, but to-day we are going to Jones’ pasture and we will not look to the right nor left, but will go straight ahead.
And I want to say that I believe that we have collected a choice company, and in this, as in all excursions, that is the main thing. I dislike a dull and stupid company. Better a meal of pork and beans, spiced with wit and flavored with good fellowship, than a feast of terrapin and canvasback duck, with a dressing of dull selfishness; better a five-cent cup of coffee, sweetened with humor and softened with the milk of human kindness, than a bottle of Cliquot drunk in stupidity and egotism.
I do not like Cliquot, canvasback duck and terrapin anyhow. Not for a steady diet, I mean. They are all right once or twice a year, or something of that kind, 206 but the longer I live the more regard I have for the man who lives frugally. The man who makes a practice of putting down his gullet at each meal stuff of such value that it equals the cost of a plain and substantial meal for half a dozen hungry people is selfish, and being selfish he is dull, or, if not dull, uncongenial.
Not all men who live frugally are bright, or congenial, or sympathetic. Some of us live frugally because we have not the wherewithal to live otherwise. Such men deserve no credit for being frugal, but so long as we accept our fate with placidity and are not consumed with an envious and spiteful desire for that which he have not, we make fairly good company and cannot be debarred from this excursion.
There is no property qualification in making up the company bound for Jones’ pasture, and we do not wish the company of those who must scan the list of invitations to make sure that no one of less wealth or social standing than themselves is there. They say that there is a need for everything in nature — that the cockroach and tumblebug have their sphere of usefulness, and it may be that in God’s economy there is some place for the snob — but it is not in our company bound for Jones’ pasture.
Too much wealth tends to produce superciliousness and ostentation, and superciliousness and ostentation are vulgar. Too much poverty tends to produce enviousness and maliciousness. It is difficult for a very rich or very poor man to be a gentleman, but there are, under each condition, men with strength of character sufficient to be gentlemen, and those we want with us.
The man of all men whom I most admire and whose company is most congenial is the man with ability enough to make sufficient income that he may, after maintaining himself and his family decently, temperately and economically, 207 have enough to lay something aside each year against the time when age or sickness may incapacitate him. Who takes life seriously, yet cheerfully, who does his full duty as a husband, father and citizen, and who takes his wife to church and rears his children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
When I was younger I believed that the only examples worthy of emulation were those of the great soldier, the great millionaire, the great poet, orator and statesman. I believe differently now.
If a man has the gift of money-getting he makes money as easily as a housewife makes dough; if he has military genius he handles armies as easily as another man lays brick; if he has the gift of gab he sways a multitude with less nervous strain than a farmer expends in plowing a stumpy lot. That a man simply uses, or misuses, the gifts Nature gave him is not heroic. Anyone may, under the pressure of excitement, charge up to the mouth of blazing cannon; but the man who controls himself, who denies himself things he would like to have and do, who curbs his desires, his passions and his temper, month after month, year after year, every day until the end, is a hero beside whose achievements those of Alexander pale into nothingness.
I remember when I was a boy I used to go to Jones’ pasture pretty regularly, not figuratively, understand, but literally.
Mr. Jones was a man who, among other things, owned a quarter section of timber land in Indiana. All the saw timber had been cut out, nothing being left but scrub timber of one sort or another, fit only for cord wood. In the intervals of the forest all sorts of underbrush and briars flourished luxuriantly, and in the intervals of the underbrush and briars grew blue grass, and in the blue 208 grass, in the spring, grew johnny-jump-ups, daisies, violets, and all manner of spring flowers. The briars yielded berries, the bushes yielded nuts, and in the winter, when the snow was deep, Jones’ pasture was the best place in all the county for catching rabbits.
In the city nothing grows but hot-house flowers and rank, poisonous, slop-watered weeds, and I have but little more use for one than for the other. I expect I am a trifle cranky on this subject, but I think more of a wayside daisy that gives of its beauty and fragrance freely, than of a hot-house rose that costs a quarter. I dislike a hot-house rose. I don’t know why exactly, but somehow it grates on my democratic soul.
I’ve known men to pay a dollar a plate for winter strawberries that were watery and tasteless. Five cents worth of bread and butter would have furnished them more nourishment and the ninety-five cents remaining might have been used to some good purpose, I don’t believe I am envious. I don’t believe I would buy hot-house roses or winter strawberries if I were worth a million, and I think —
But there! there! I’m getting in a bad humor and we must push on to Jones’ pasture.
* * *
Jone’s pasture was the playground and the foraging field for the boys for miles around. Mr. Jones was a very wealthy man, for a country community, who became wealthy by living very frugally and living a long time. He owned two thousand acres of land and bank stock, notes, mortgages and money without end. And he was a good old gentleman. I didn’t know it when I was a boy, but I know it now.
On his land was a railway station and a little country village, all of which belonged to him. In the village 209 was a tumble-down building, where a man kept a country store. In this building Mr. Jones had a battered desk stowed in the smallest possible space, with egg cases, boots and shoes, dry goods and hardware piled all about. So small was the space that there was no room for a stool or a chair. Standing at this desk Mr. Jones did all the clerical work and kept all the accounts of his business. The clerks pushed and jostled him and occasionally stood on his desk to reach some article high above, and Mr. Jones never complained.
Of course all kinds of people came to see him on business. He had scores of tenants on his land, and farmers, merchants and bankers who needed his money or advice were frequent callers. For the accommodation of these he had a goods box which he kept on the north side of the store in summer, for the shade, and on the south side in the winter for the sun. If the weather was inclement and the visitor’s business of a private and confidential nature, Mr. Jones took him into the back room of the store, and there, among the molasses and vinegar barrels, with the odor of decaying vegetables and leaking coal oil ascending their nostrils, they stood — there was no room for sitting — and transacted their business.
And I don’t believe he was a miser. He told my Uncle John one day: “John,” he said, “I don’t live as I do because I need to, nor because I especially like to. I have not long to live and I have no child or chick to leave my money to. I had as well spend some of it, but I feel it my duty to set an example to the rising generation. The young men of to-day have such uppish and extravagant notions in their heads that I owe it to them to set an example of frugality.”
As to his woods pasture, he said he kept it to furnish firewood for his tenants, and everybody said he was foolish 210 to do it. His tenants didn’t take twenty loads of wood out of it a year, for in those days firewood was plentiful in Indiana.
Do you know that as I look back I believe old Mr. Jones kept that pasture so that the boys might have it? Nobody thought it at the time, but he was a curious man. And why shouldn’t he do it? His money was just piling up for his relatives to quarrel over. There were other places, it is true, but none like Jones’ pasture. The forests were too dense, or, as soon as they were cleared sufficiently to permit bushes and briars and flowers to grow, they were cleared for cultivation, or the owner wanted the nuts and berries for himself.
Of course Mr. Jones had to grumble and scold a lot about the boys knocking rails off the fence and so on, but he never molested us. And once, when a tramp, a rare bird in those days, beat some of the boys and took their berries from them, Mr. Jones hired the constable to hunt him down and arrest him. Then Mr. Jones prosecuted him and had him sent to jail. I know that. He said, though, that he hoped it would be a warning for us to keep out of his pasture, but we didn’t keep out, and he knew we wouldn’t, and I believe he wanted us to.
* * *
The season at Jones’ pasture may be said to have opened about the time the frost went out of the ground in the spring. When that time came it wasn’t necessary to send out a call for a meeting. Not a bit. The first Sunday afternoon after the ground firmed up a little there would be a gathering at the “slippery log,” and from then on there were busy times in Jones’ pasture.
The blackberry season was my harvest time. Owing to the configuration of my optics I could keep one eye on 211 the berries I was picking and keep the other roving abut looking for more, so I was very successful.
During the berry season Uncle John’s wife would get me up and have my breakfast in time that I would be in Jones’ pasture as soon as it was light enough to see the berries. So by the time the other boys began coming I would be sneaking out with my pail full.
And how eager her knobby, toil-twisted hands were as she pulled aside the leaves, and how her worn old face lighted up as she saw the brimming pail. For Uncle John, being a mechanical genius and spending so much time tinkering at his saw mill and inventing machines that wouldn’t go, blackberries, nuts and rabbits filled a large place in our domestic economy. But Uncle John’s wife and I were a pair of hustlers and got our share of whatever was going.
* * *
But that was twenty-five years ago. And of those twenty-five years, old Mr. Jones has been dead for fifteen and Uncle John and Uncle John’s wife for nearly as long. I stopped over night at the little town a few years ago, just to see the folks, and bless me if I could find but one man who even remembered me. Colonel Wilkins, Squire Bensley and the Widow Tumlin were all dead. Oh, yes, been dead for years. And old man Hammerstone, the blacksmith, and his pretty daughter — what was her name? Lucy? Yes, that was it. Hadn’t I heard about that? Thought everybody had heard that. Why, she ran away with a rascally piano tuner and went to the bad, and the old man hung himself in his shop.
And all the boys had grown up and most of them had gone away. Had to go away, don’t you see, for the town hadn’t grown and the surplus population had to go away. 212 I wanted to ask about the boys, but do you know that to save my life I couldn’t remember their names?
The next morning I went out to Jones’ pasture, or where Jones’ pasture used to be. I had a good deal of trouble locating it, but succeeded at last, and found a great field of corn waving over it. Where the old bars used to be was a new eight-bar gate with the sign tacked on it: “No trespassing on these premises.”
* * *
So good-bye to Jones’ pasture. The real Jones’ pasture I mean. It has gone and I don’t care much. It had to go, but I wouldn’t take a farm for Jones’ pasture as it exists in my memory; and there are hundreds of care-burdened men scattered over this country to-day who feel as I do. In fact, I suppose every man has a Jones’ pasture, where, on a hot, muggy day like this, when his load seems heavy and his harness galls him, he may lean back in his chair and take a mental excursion.
If I did not know that most of you have such a field in your memory I wouldn’t write this. I know that you have no interest in my Jones’ pasture only as it suggest yours, and as you read of mine you are thinking of your own.
And you put feathers in your hat and stain your face with mulberry juice and play Indian, weaving the saplings together to make a wigwam. And the soldiers charge you — soldiers in paper caps and with broomstick guns. And you — but there! there!
The excursion to Jones’ pasture is over and I must get back to work again.
213
HOW TO ACQUIRE RICHES.
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PART II.
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I am in a rather serious situation with this subject. I know there will be demand that it be finished and I dread the responsibility.
Seeing how serious is the situation I am called to face, I regret that I took the subject up at all, or that I took it up so lightly. It is a comprehensive subject which should be viewed from many sides. If discussed at all it should be discussed systematically and thoroughly. One proposition should be fitted into another with logical exactness. The whole structure should be so dovetailed, end matched and side braced that it would only grow stronger under pressure and would be practically indestructible.
But I did not start into the matter in the proper spirit. I simply reached up into the air and pulled down a few chunks of truth, and, without stopping to square or match them, jumbled them hastily together. The result has not proven satisfactory, and I am compelled either to have my work made a laughing stock and by-word among 214 all the people or I must tear it down and rebuild it in a more scientific and workmanlike manner.
So I have concluded that I will work the thing over entirely. I’ll begin at the foundation and build a structure that will be a comfort to all of us.
I have been reading a book on “Love,” which has given me some good ideas. At first it would seem impossible to write a 280-page book on “Love,” but the way the author went to work it is simple enough. He divided the subject into twenty-four parts, or sub-heads, devoting a chapter to each. Some of those sub-heads are as follows: “What is love?” “How to win love,” “How to retain love,” etc. It is a book Kimball bought when he was a bachelor and he says the fellow knows what he talks about.
Lack of space forbids that I go so thoroughly into my subject as to divide it into twenty-four parts, but I will do what I can. The first thing we will consider is “What constitutes riches?”
I think I hear some impatient, poorly balanced reader grumbling at this. He is certain he knows riches when he sees them. What he wants is to get right at it and make a lot of money. That kind of a man never will get rich. He rushes into everything like a hog going to war. He would want to begin learning the carpenter trade by building a house. I want to take to that man a while, even if we have to stop the procession to do it.
I want to ask him if he doesn’t know that there are great responsibilities attached to riches? Why, bless the man! I couldn’t do him a greater injury than to let him into my system all at once, and let him make a whole lot of money before the responsibilities of wealth had been properly impressed upon him. First, we are to consider what constitutes riches,” then “Is contentment 215 better than riches, and if so, why?” “How may the most enjoyment be gotten out of riches?” etc. Then after he has learned all these things and is thoroughly prepared we will pull the curtain aside and disclose to the man “How to acquire riches.”
* * *
And right here is where the dream came in. I went home last night thinking seriously about how I should handle the subject of this article. I wanted to do it justice, to handle it in such a way as would bring to the readers of this article that solid prosperity which comes of a well-considered scheme of finance, and intended to devote an evening of intense thought as to how I might best inform our readers on the subject “How to acquire riches.”
I wished to impart the information in such a way that the reader would not only be enabled to acquire riches with ease and dispatch, but that he would feel the obligations and responsibilities of wealth. The landlord dropped in after supper, however, to know what I intended to do about paying my rent, and broke into my evening to such an extent that bed time came without my having received any inspiration.
People draw inspiration from various things. Some are inspired by the grandeur of the mountains, others by the gentle beauty of pastoral life; some are inspired by the noble and lofty virtues of great men, others by the homely qualities of every-day heroes. I am rather ashamed to confess it, but when I am up a stump for something to write about it is my custom to eat a cheese sandwich and go to bed. When I do this, I am pretty nearly sure to dream something worth while.
That’s a fact. I don’t pretend to account for it unless it is that the spirit of some poor devil of an underfed 216 writer, who burdened the earth in some past time, has taken a fancy to me, and, summoned by some inherent virtue in the cheese sandwich, comes to my assistance. I talked to my wife about it. She heard me patiently and then said I was getting crazier than ever.
The fact remains, however, that there is more inspiration, for me, in a cheese sandwich than in anything else, so last night I ate a cheese sandwich just before going to bed. The result was that I had a sort of a nightmare and dreamed of Jesse Thompson of Memphis.
I thought that Jesse came briskly into my office and told me that as he had accumulated a large fortune he intended to retire from business. He further stated that he had been strongly impressed by the articles I have written pertaining to the responsibilities attaching to wealth and that he believed with Andrew Carnegie, that it is a sin for a man to die rich. Therefore, he intended to distribute his wealth during his lifetime and as he felt he owed most of his success to my teachings, he intended to make me a beneficiary. He had a large tract of timber land in the South, worth, at a safe estimate, a million dollars. This he generously wished to bestow upon me, and he did, then and there, proceed in his open-handed free-hearted way to bestow the property upon me.
Hardly had Jesse gone when Ed Taenzer, also of Memphis, came in. He said that he did not propose that J. W. Thompson & Co. should get ahead of E. E. Taenzer & Co., and as Mr. Thompson had given me a million-dollar tract of timber land, he would to the same. Then I thought that Ed and I went down into Tennessee to look over the property and, just when we had found a moonshine still, I awoke. That’s always the way with dreams — you awake just when you get to the interesting part.
217But that dream gave me some new ideas and caused me to rearrange my plan for treating the subject under discussion. It suggested a point I had not thought of before and I hastened to make it lest it be overlooked.
It strikes me that when, as a result of the information I am giving in these articles, all the readers of the articles become rich, they will owe their riches largely to me, and that they should divide.
Russell Sage says that making money is largely a matter of habit. That a man gets into the habit of making money, and that, like all habits, it grows by what it feeds upon until a man becomes a slave to it. Like the man who becomes a slave to the alcohol or tobacco habit, he cases to be his own master, and there is no harder master than avarice. When a man makes his first dollar, as when he takes his first drink, he may be laying the foundation of a habit that will prove his undoing. I would like you to consider this seriously before you proceed to finish this article and start upon your mad career of money-making.
* * *
I read of a man once — a gambler, who, after a long run of hard luck, sold his soul to the devil, provided he might have a certain period in which it would be impossible for him to lose at any kind of a game of chance. Of course the man should not have done this, but you know how a fellow feels, when — but no matter.
The man had all kinds of luck, and money poured in on him from all sides, but after the novelty had worn off, the constant winning grew very, very monotonous, and he would have given all he possessed to lose just once. Then he fell in love, and being so lucky at everything else, he was of course unlucky in love. That is the invariable rule, and when my wife gets to bewailing 218 the fact that I am such an unlucky fellow, I tell her that a man who has won such a woman as she is has had his share of luck and can’t expect any more. And it always fixes the matter all right.
I am getting away from my subject, but I will tell you what that man’s finish was. He became so miserable, finally, that he begged the devil to take him before his time was up, and to accommodate him the devil did it. He has not been heard from since.
I see plainly now that it is impossible in the small space available to give the kind of discussion to our important subject that we would like. I have endeavored to impress upon you some idea of the cares and responsibilities of wealth, and prepare you to stand prosperity. If you allow yourself to be carried away and made a fool of I can’t help it. I have so much to attend to that I will have to risk it.
And now I will let you into my plan for acquiring riches. It is to work hard and save your money.
219
THE LAW OF COMPENSATION.
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I am a firm believer in the law of compensation. That is, I believe that whatever a man loses one place he makes up somewhere else, so that we all get about the same out of life.
A man told me the other day that I am the most contented man he ever saw, and he couldn’t understand it. He couldn’t see how a person, situated as I am, could be contented, but I will tell you the secret. I am always telling you some secret or other, which shows how much I think of you.
I am contented with what may appear to you a very miserable condition, because I believe in the law of compensation. I believe it will be made up to me after a while.
It has been my experience that the things that seemed to me great misfortunes at the time have turned out the greatest blessings. Things that when they happened seemed to carry ruin in their wake have almost invariably been the best things that could have happened to me.
For instance, I once had an offer to go to China and accept a position there, which promised a great and successful 220 commercial career. As I was a very young man at that time, and employed by a railroad in the humble capacity of section hand at $1.15 per day, it seemed to me a tremendous misfortune when I met with an accident which laid me up for three months and caused me to lose the chance. But while I was convalescing I met the lady who is now my wife, and shortly thereafter married her. Had I gone to China this could not have happened and my wife says I would be a pretty looking thing by this time if I hadn’t met her; which is no doubt true.
So I have reached a point in the development of my philosophy where I enjoy myself all the time. If I am suffering from what appears to be a misfortune I am pleased thereat, because I know I will get something mighty good as an offset; and if I am enjoying a stroke of what appears good fortune I know I have earned it by something I have endured. So I am contented either way you take it.
A gentleman was going along a country road one bright summer day, when he saw some men at work in a hayfield at the side of the road. The owner of the field was standing by the fence and the gentleman accosted him.
“Fine weather we are having,” he said.
“I don’t know what you call fine weather,” said the farmer, gloomily. “If it rains it will cause a great loss in the hay harvest, and if it continues dry it will ruin the corn crop. Whatever it does it will lose me money.”
Somewhat depressed by this pessimistic view of the weather the gentleman drove on. Presently he came to another field, where other men were making hay and another farmer standing by the fence. He was a very cheerful looking farmer, however, with a very broad and smiling countenance. He accosted the gentleman:
221“Hullo!” he said, “mighty fine weather.”
“Do you think so?” said the gentleman.
“Think so!” said the farmer heartily. “I know so. I’ve got a joke on the weather. If it stays dry I will put up the finest crop of hay you ever saw. If it rains it will interfere with my haying some, but it will be the making of the corn crop. Whatever it does will suit me and make me money.”
* * *
But I started in to tell you about the law of compensation. Once you get to understand this law thoroughly it will do you a lot of good. If during the gloomy years of the panic you had been upborne by the certainty that the Lord intended to compensate you by a period of prosperity, such as you are enjoying to-day, it would have saved you much worry, wouldn’t it?
I am not altogether certain, however, that I am doing you a kindness in explaining this law to you; for if you come to understand it thoroughly, you will quit your worrying and will be happy and contented at all times. You will cease to suffer, and where there is no suffering there is no compensation due. Had you gone through the panic in a happy and contented frame of mind the Lord would probably consider that you are one of the luckiest men in the world, in being able to do that, and no compensation would be due you. I believe I am looked upon in this way, and I have noticed that the man who has a cheerful and contented mind never has much else except a lot of children and maybe a dog or two.
And now there comes into my mind the grave doubt as to whether I am doing you any good in writing this. Maybe you don’t wish to be contented and happy. I know people who despise such condition, and consider it very vulgar. They are never happy unless they are 222 miserable. If you belong to this class, and if I should so unfold the law of compensation to you that you would become happy and contented against your will, you would never forgive me.
A man’s life is like a block map. You know what a block map is. It’s a map made by fitting a lot of blocks together. A man’s life is a good deal like that. A lot of blocks are given him, already sawed out. All he has to do is to fit them together, and he never knows exactly what he is going to make until he gets through. Sometimes he hasn’t wit enough to fit them together and has to give it up.
That’s the way it is with me when I try to write an article. I go into the cupboard of my mind and scan the labels on the boxes. I open one containing data on the subject desired, and find therein a lot odd-shaped, colored blocks — blocks of fact and blocks of fancy — and proceed to fit them together. I never know what I am going to produce until I get through, and sometimes I have to give it up altogether.
This article has turned out in a way that surprises me. I am like the hen, which, after a long and patient period of “setting,” has hatched out a turkey. The blamed, awkward thing isn’t what I thought it would be. I started out cock-sure that I would be doing you a favor by putting you next to this law of compensation, but now I am not sure.
That’s always the way with a reformer. He is always striking some sordid, worldly consideration, which knocks him silly, and I’ve pretty nearly made up my mind to give up and let the funny old world go to the dickens. I seem only to make matters worse and I have a mind to begin a series of articles retracting everything I have written in the past, and, when that is accomplished, to 223 write no more forever and ever. And that reminds me of another story.
I had a friend once, a bright and promising young man, who was elected to the legislature. He was full of enthusiastic projects for reforming things, and I expected much of him.
It was several years before I met him again.
“Are you still a member of the legislature?” I asked.
“I am,” he said, sadly, “and a candidate for re-election.”
“How about the reforms?”
“Well,” he said, “I succeeded, the first term, in getting three laws enacted. I have held two terms since and have succeeded in getting two of them repealed. I am a candidate for re-election on the platform that I will get the remaining law repealed and quit. The platform seems popular with the people and I believe I will get a bigger majority than ever.”
* * *
And now that this book is prepared for the eagerly waiting public, I do not know whether I am doing my duty in turning it loose. Suppose some sincere admirer of my philosophy should read the book and then attempt to follow the advice I have given — all of it. I shudder to think of it.
But never mind, dear reader. I believe you’ve got more sense than that. You know that I don’t know any more than you do, maybe not nearly so much; but I do know that every man is making a hard fight, and recognize the futility of attempting to lay down rules for his guidance. Every man has to make his own fight, in his own way, with such weapons as God and Nature have furnished him. The most we may do for him is to let him know that we understand the situation, that we appreciate his difficulties and that we will lend him all the help we 224 can afford. But he must make his own fight in his own way.
So the sum of all my philosophy is that I don’t know anything to help you. You’ve got to bear a cross if you hope to wear a crown. But remember that all about you men are making the same kind of fight that you are making, and that you must not be hard-hearted.
The man who knows it all, who is cock sure, and who judges all men by his own standard, is an ass.
[The end of the text: Cornfield Philosophy, by C. D. Strode.]
