Now is the time to take care of the surplus apples, all the early varieties that make such lovely sauce. As I sat on the screened porch this morning, working on a bushel or so of Duchess and Early Transparents, I could see barns, yards, garden and chicken house, and the horses and cows beyond knee-deep in clover." My mind wandered idly over many, many matters I got to wondering why we cling to farm life in spite of its hardships and hard times. I wondered why a hired man, for instance, with no ties to hold him any particular place, will stick to farming year in and year out, when he could get higher cash wages at the factory in town. I though of our different men of whom I had asked the question The answer often was, "Oh, I don't know: I've tried both; but there's something about the country ____!" and they never were able to express it any further.
There is something about the country that gets into the blood. When we are actually there, working all day, sleeping all night, we often are unconscious of the appeal for weeks on end. But leave the country for a while, or suddenly let some beautiful aspect strike you and you thrill from the roots of your hair to your toes. I get that thrill sometimes when I am first one up on a spring morning, when the light is still faintly gray and the only sounds are the almost inaudible twitter of birds and insects and the still so tiny that they only make an impalpable mist among the trees; when the hickory buds are still pink and crumpled like a baby's first.
In Early Morn
I get that thrill early on a midsummer morning when I step out to the well and look upon a green and golden world that is breathless at its own beauty; when the grain shocks are tawny hammocks in the stubble that has commenced to show green and the tassels of the corn are golden crowns: when you feel that the day will be "a scorcher," but for that exquisite hushed moment the world is bathed in the lingering coolness of the night and the last white mist hangs at the horizon.
I got it in the friendly dusk of early autumn, when the family scatters over lawn and porch quiet and satisfied with a hard days work well done Or in husking days, when the men have finished their sausage and hot cakes, I follow them outdoors for a breath of the tang, crisp air, and find the world still dark except for a strip of light in the east. Or in the winter afternoon, when the leaden sky, low and somber, meets the bare plowed lands and the dreary withered cornfield, and the gaunt trees resist the winter wind. I feel a fierce thrill of loyalty to a land that for all its bleakness can be at times so fair.
I get the thrill (did you ever, too?) when I wake suddenly, for no reason at all on a full moonlight night. Everything familiar seems mysterious and remote My heart fairly flops over at the immensity of life I marvel and I almost cringe with awe; and then the persistent, brooding silence, and the unearthly light finally flood my being with a strange comfort and rest, and soothe me gently back into the arms or rest.
In the Kitchen, Too
I get a thrill when I set a row of topaz and rub jellies on the window sill and revel in the sunlight pouring through I get it when the bread comes from the oven golden-brown and plump, or when I see a line of white clothes against a blue sky and pink hollyhock background. (I love hollyhocks! They are gracious, satin-soft and delicate, but they stand straight and brave and true. They are symbolic of the country itself; they are beautiful-- and brave)
I get the thrill when I look upon my babies asleep, and think with a tightening of the throat, that if I can raise them right they will live for years and years to thrill to the cycle of the seasons, and their children and children's children will still enjoy the country after I am gone.
Tell me, do you, too, love the country in these ways? Amid all the monotony and labor of the farm, in spite of trouble and worry and sacrifice, do you, sometimes, get the thrills that compensate for every hardship? If you do, you will understand what any one means who says, "there is something about the farm___!"