How we saved the old farm and how it became a new farm

Chapter I

"Now, Helen," said my uncle, as he leaned back in the great rocking-chair, and carelessl^^ jingled the ponderous seal upon his massive gold chain with his left hand, "I have been thinking this matter over ever since I heard of poor William's death, and I have made up mj'^ mind just what is the best thing for j'ou to do. You might sell the wood off, and sell the stock and tools, and in that way pay the mortgage ; and then you could live a few j'ears by selling the hay, with what these bojs could earn, but the farm would be growing poorer and would not sell for so much as it would sell for now, and my advice would be to make a clean sale of everything now, and pay off the debts, and get a little place in Blackington, where the boj's could go to work in the factory ; and upon what they earned, and upon what 3'ou would have, you could live quite comfortable. And if 3'ou felt able to take a few boarders, with Alice to help you., you might make a good thing in that way, I dare say."

And Uncle Robert, who was a prosperous merchant in the distant city of Woodville, and an influential man there, looked as if the business was all settled to his satisfaction, and nothing more remained but to carry out his plans. I,

4 HOW WE SA\TED TIIE OLD FARM.

the before-mentioned Alice, a girl of thirteen, who had a keen dread of leaving our old home, which I loved so dearl}-, but with too much awe of my energetic, loud-talking uncle and his gold seal, which I had always looked upon as if it were a badge of authority, to venture any remonstrance, glanced anxiousl}' at the other members of our famil}' circle to see how they received it. Mother, in her newly put on widow's weeds, looked as if the very thought was an additional distress to her, and 3'et as if she knew not which wa}' to turn or what to do. She had always been used to having my father decide upon all matters of business, and although, like most New England farmers' wives, she had always been ready to "have her say" upon all matters, yet she would have been astonished if she had thought that anything depended entirely upon her will, and would not have known what her will really w-^^ I could see that she did not want to leave the old farm, but I knew any real opposition to the plan must come from some one else who could offer a better plan.

Ned, my playmate, my brother, scarcely a j-ear older than myself, was already exclaiming against going into the factory village ; but it was to Clarence, a bo}^ of sixteen, one of those rare ones who seldom spoke until he had well considered what he had to say, and who usually ended by having things his own way, because he felt sure that way was right, and he never gave up although ho :nade no violent opposition to other people, it was to him that I looked next as the one who would decide the question. He said nothing, but the contraction of his brow, and the lips which were firmly closed, as was his habit when he was thinking intently, gave me an indefinite sort of encouragement that he had some other plan, which he would bring forward when he had fully considered it.

" I don't know what is best," at last answered my mother, sighing heavil}', " and I have no doubt you are right ; but I do not like the idea of giving up the old place, where I have lived with William for eighteen 3"ears, and where the children ■n-ere born, and which has been in the farail}' so long ; I must have time to thinlv it over and to make up my mind to it, if it must be."

I could see Clarence's face light up, as if the time to think it over was just what he wanted, but my uncle impatiently exclaimed : —

" What is the use of thinking it over? Can't 3'ou see that it is just what must be, if you think it over for a year? And the longer you wait, the worse for 3'ou. Now I am here, I can give 3'ou my advice about what to do and how to do it, and I might see some one in Blackington to-morrow, as I go baciv, who would look out for a place for j'ou there bj- stopping over a train, though I ought to get back to Woodville as quickly as possible. But I cannot ver}' well come down again this winter it is so far and such a cold ride, and I miist be very busy now looking out for the spring trade, which I hope will be better than it has been for a year past. If it is not I cannot tell how I may come out, for it is a hard time for me to get monc}' to meet my bills."

I was ungenerous enough to look upon that as a hint which was calculated to put a stop beforehand to any appeals to him for aid, but I maj' have been wrong. It was the hard wanter of 1857, when many business men felt as despondent as Uncle Robert. At an}' rate it was not needed, for my mother would not have thought of making such application even to him, her only brother, unless we had been suffering for the necessaries of life.

" Well," said my mother, "I cannot decide it to-night. I am too tired to think now, and I must think of it and talk it over with the children, and perhaps with Mr. Grey, before I do anything."

"Much these children know about such things, and a farmer who never was out of the county will nol know much more, I suppose : but you can have 3-our own way," said

Uncle Robert, indignanth', and in a tone that said as plainly as words that we should get no more advice from him unless we asked for it. And then the conversation drifted upon indifferent subjects, while Ned pouted, with the tears occasionly starting from his e^-es as he thought of leaving our dearl}' loved home. And I, instead of going to him for sympath}^ as I would have done if we had been in trouble of a more trivial nature, crept close to Clarence and put my hand in his, feeling as if I relied upon his stronger will for strength to resist against being further bereaved.

We had that da}" followed to the tomb the mortal remains of our father, who had been taken from us suddenly. Only a few days before he had left us well and strong as usual, and gone to the Corners with a load of wood, and before night the minister of our little church had come in and gentl}' broken to us the news that he had been found dead upon the road, having apparently fallen beneath the wheels of the wagon in such a wa}^ that the wheels had passed over his neck and broken it instantly. What caused the fall none knew.

Our father had been taken from us, and now to tr}' to take away our home and put us down in Blackington, a village where I had been a few times with my father, as it was only eight miles from us, where I seemed to see my brothers growing to look like the boj's I had seen coming to and going from the factory ; with faces black as they came from work or pale and peaked after they had washed the black off ; with pipes in their mouths, or still worse, with tobacco juice staining clothing, uttering oaths and coarse jokes, regardless of those who were in hearing ; even a vision of mysef, like a girl of about my own age that I had once seen there, quarreling and actual!}' swearing at some one who might perhaps have been her mother, who was calling her to come home. No, no, it was too dreadful. I think if I had been offered a choice to go there or go to the poor-house, where good-hearted, thougli rough, Uncle Tom Hardy ruled over and cared for the half-dozen aged and infirm, and poor crippled Sally Jones and her two quiet children, I should have hailed the poor-house with joy. I knew it well, and it was not so awful ; — but Blackington seemed full of unknown dangers.

And now let me tell you something of ourselves, that 3'ou may know into what society 3'ou have been so unceremoniously introduced. My grandfather, on m^- father's side, was descended from one of the early settlers of Brookfield, where we resided. It was a quiet countrj^ place, a half-dozen miles from any railroad. No village had been formed in Brookfield, or nearer than Blackington, eight miles away, though at Brookfield Four Corners, some two miles from us, was the blacksmith shop, the old stage tavern, and the grocery, which was also the post-office. At the tavern was also a public hall, where an occasional lecture, dance, or show of some sort sometimes appeared to break the monotony of our quiet existence. Elsewhere through the town the houses were scattered at irregular intervals along the road, mostl}' standing a little back from the road, with old orchards around them, and barns near by where cows lowed and pigs grunted or squealed at feeding time. The people within a mile either wa3^were neighbors, and the farmers borrowed and loaned tools and carriages and teams, and exchanged spare-ribs of pork and legs of beef at killing time, and changed works in planting or hoeing or haA'ing time, without often figuring up to see just how the account stood until death took one of the parties and so balanced the account. And the farmers' wives and mothers tripped back and forward, with shawls or aprons over their heads, in the twilight to gossip, and compare calico, and borrow drawings of tea and cups of sugar or molasses of one another, to be conscientiously repaid when their husbands should get time to go to the Corners again.

Here my grandfather — Thomas Re^-nolds — had owned a large tract of land, from which he had given my Uncle

Thomas, his oldest son, the land which was now his farm upon which he lived, just north of ours. For the next son, Uncle James, he had sold some outlying lots and some of the cattle and raised five hundred dollars, which James had taken as his portion and departed for the West. He had first settled in Western New York, then moved to Ohio, and, when last heard from, had sold out there and was going to the newl}' discovered land of gold — to California. No tidings had come for many years, and we had long thought of him among those who had perished upon the plains in the endeavor to reach the gold regions, or had succumbed to the hai'dships of the mines.

Aunt Matilda, the only daughter, had married James Gre}', the son of old Squire Grey of the neighboring town, who was now a squire himself, and a well-to-do farmer, with better barns and better fields than any in Brookfield, and good stock of improved breeds and patent tools of all sorts, which he was perpetually praising as being so superior to those possessed by his humble neighbors that they " would paj' their cost in one j'ear, sir," as he confidently asserted. However, as he kept no strict account of profit or loss, and had interest and rent coming in, people received his praises of improved farming with a little mental reservation, and said " it wa's all very well for the squire to do so, but poor farmers must go more carefull}', and make less if it must be less." And while the squire, as became a man of propert}', was a man of great influence in town matters, and esteemed as shrewd in advising other people in matters of business not connected with farming, 3'et he could not persuade the farmers to mount an}' one of his hobbies. He was generous and liberal to a fault toward all with whom he came in contact if business was not attempted, but he was sharp in trade and a most exacting creditor. It was to pa}' off the marriage portion of five hundred dollars, which my grandfather had promised Aunt Matilda, that father had placed that mortgage upon the farm ;

HOW WE SAVED TIIE OLD FAKM. 9

borrowing the money of the squire to pay his wife, wlien grandfather gave him the deed of the old homestead. When father had brought home to the old house the pretty Helen Talbot, the school-teacher in our district one term, and presented her to his father as his wife, then grandfather resigned control of the farm and gave my father the deed of it, upon condition of a support while he lived, and the payment of the before-mentioned sum to Aunt Matilda when he died. And here father had lived and managed the farm very much, I fancy, as his father had done before him, saving not much while the children were small, especially while grandfather lived, and then at his death came the mortgage, of which the squire had rigorously demanded the interest every year ; and if father had any money left one 3'ear, after paying interest and taxes, the next j-ear he perhaps had to sell a cow or a hog to square up. And so, at his death, we had the farm, the stock and tools, and the mortgage as our inheritance.

The winter before the one on which my story opens, father and Clarence had cut the wood off the north lot, and had sold it to a man at the Corners, and it was nearlj' the last load which father had carried upon that last day of his life, so that we felt sure of having money enough there to pay all funeral expenses and live upon for a short time, for our wants were not many. We had beef and pork in the cellar, and potatoes and pumpkins, and in the crib there was a good supply of corn and rye, and ha}- and corn-stover in the bai*n for the cattle, and the cows would give us plenty of milk and butter, and the sale of butter and eggs would suppl}' us with groceries, for a while at least. So, when in the morning Uncle Robert, as he hurried to get awaj^ for the morning stage from the Corners, ventured to repeat a little of the advice which he had urged so persistently the night before, m}' mother could afford to repl}' : " No need of hurr^'ing about it, Robert, we can stay here awhile longer yet, I trust, and we may see a better way yet."

And when he had gone, mother and I went about our work of clearing up and putting away, and our domestic duties, stopping, now and then, for a quiet cry together, as some article came to hand which too strongly brought to mind the great loss we had met. And the bojs went to the barn and the woodpile, where we could see from the window that they were in earnest conversation about something much of the time, Clarence doing the most of the talking, I thought, which was contrary to the usual custom when the}^ were together. I say we could see, but I doubt if my mother noticed it ; but I did, and wondered what it meant. At noon and at sui)per I looked for something from Clarence upon the question of going to Blackington, but he was about as usual, only, as I thought, a shade more quiet. He seemed to have a load of care upon his mind which was not there before, while Ned, though quiet, seemed to have become more manly all at once. It was not until evening came again, and we had gathered once more in the little sitting-room, with mother knitting (an occupation which she had not tried since the shock came upon her ; but which she would have gone to the evening before if it had not been for the restraint of Uncle Robert's presence. It was the unwonted idleness of her fingers which had made her so at a loss that night, I thought) and me with my book, that the third plan was unfolded.

Chapter II

We had sat but a few minutes when Clarence gravely changed his seat from the chair where he had been sitting, into the arm-chair by the stove, which had alwaj'S been called " father's chair," either as if thus asserting his position as the head of the family, or perhaps from an idea tliat what he was about to say would have more weight if advanced from that position, and when my mother glanced at him as if in surprise, he looked full at her and asked, " Have j'ou thought much to-day about what Uncle Robert said, and of his two plans for us ?"

" Not much, my son, and I do not feel ready to decide 3'et. We can live as we are for a while, and when I can, I will go over and talk with 3'our Aunt Matilda and the squire about it. Robert is a smart man in the city, and in his own business, but he has not judgment for us down here upon a farm, I am afraid, and I cannot bear to think of leaving the old farm, unless there is no other way for us to do."

" But I think I can see another wa}-, mother, besides either of Uncle Robert's plans, and I have thought it carefully over, and 710W 1 want,3'ou to think of it and see if it is not better than the others ; it will enable us to stay here together upon the old place."

"How?"

"Do you know that I am sixteen years old, and Ned is over fourteen, and we know how to do almost all kinds of farm-work, and I can do as much as a man at most work ; and r think we can run the farm so as to make a living for ourselves."

" And I am willing to work just as hard as ever I can," saj's Ned, " and I will help milk and do chores and drive team, and shovel and hoe, and help take care of hay, and dig potatoes, and cut wood, or do anything, if j-ou onl}- will sa}^ that you will not go to Blackington. Just think of those boys we used to see when I Avent there with father, begging for apples, as if they were half-starved, and swearing if father wouldn't give them any ; and if he did, they came back again, lying, and saying that they had not had any. I knew them even when" they had swapped hats and coats before they came back. You wouldn't want me to look like them, would you, mother?"

" No, Ned ; I should not expect you to look or act like them, even if we moved there, but I cannot say about you and Clarence managing the farm. You are only bo3-s, and I am afraid 3'ou could not do work enough to make a living on the farm. It would be quite an undertaking."

" But, mother," said Clarence, again in his moderate wa}', " I have thought it all over and I know just what lots father meant to plant next j'ear, and I know how to do the work, and I shall not plant quite as much, so that there will not be so much to take care of, but I will put on manure heavy where I do plant, and see if I can't raise as much on a little field as we used to on big ones. I heard Squire Grey tell father one day that he ought to do so. And, then, I remember what I have read in the old "Farmers," and "Ploughmans," and " Cultivators " that I have borrojved, and I think I can manage it so it will pay."

" But that mortgage will be a drag on us all the time, and you never can make a living for us and pa}' that ; only you two boys."

" Well, we can pay the interest on it as has always been done, and the squire will not want an3'thing more than that until we get older and can make more. And you can make the butter, and Alice can take care of the hens and chickens, we will sell butter and eggs and chickens, and I will raise calves and pigs and lots of other things on the farm to sell, and I know we can get money enough to live on, and pa^' the interest besides. What do you think of the plan, mother? "

" I am afraid \'ou and Ned do not realize how hard j'ou must work ; and what will you do if you have a job that j'ou do not know how to do, or that is too heavy for 3'Ou, or if any of the cattle are sick?"

" If I do not know just how to do, I will ask some of the farmers in the neighborhood, if I cannot find out b}' reading my papers ; and if I have a hard job I will get Jake Wood to help me. He knows how to do everything after some now WE SAVED TILE OLD FABM. 13

fashion or other, and we could get him for a few days at any time, you know."

" ' Talk of angelsand j'ou may hear their wings,' " saidmy mother ; "I believe I hear Jake's wings now."

And, surely enough, we could hear a lumbering tread coming up the foot-path to the backdoor, which certainly sounded like the foot-falls of the individual mentioned, though there was not much resemblance to the usual idea of angels' wings ; but as I never heard angels' wings, I cannot tell. And while he is coming in, let me introduce him to 3-our acquaintance. Jake is one of those harmless individuals who have never settled down to anj^ steady occupation. There is perhaps a taint of the blood of some Indian ancestor in his veins ; such is the usual opinion of the country people about him, and it is borne out as much by his habits as by his long, straight, black hair, dark complexion, and prominent cheek bones. He lives alone in a little cottage near the edge of the great swamp, and has done so since his mother died, many years ago. Alone, I say, excepting a hound, which is liis constant companion indoors and out. He is a famous hunter, trapper, and fisherman, and by his earnings in that way, and the products of a little garden near his cottage, and, with the proceeds of berry-picking in the summer, he is independent, and under no obligations to work for any other man ; yet he can be got to work a few days when any neighboring farmer is hard pushed ; but it will be only a few days before the roving spirit will seize him, and he must be off. Some favorite spots of bei'ries have ripened and must be picked, and Jake knows many such places almost inaccessible to any one else ; or he gets to hankering for rabbit or partridge, meat or fish, and off he goes. I have heard that he once worked for Bill Varnum over a week, when Bill was sick, and no one else would woi'k for him because they thought Bill was poor pay. At any rate, there is no surer way to get Jake's help than to tell him that j'ou had been everywhere else and could not get any one to help 3'ou. But it is time to let him speak for himself, which he will not be backward about doing, now he is in the room, with his hat under his chair, his dog Rover beside him, and his game-bag in his lap. Jake would resent an}^ attempt to take his hat and hang it up as an insult, and I am not sure but Rover would also resent it. The game-bag is not empt}', and I feel sure that he means to leave its contents here. I am planning alread}' with what I will refill it, for such exchanges- are not uncommon with us.

" Good-evening, ma'am, and young folks," said Jake, as he took the chair which I put by the stove for him ; " thought I must come in and see you a few minutes, bein* as I was comin' this way. Should have brought my wife along, too, only the babj' is having the hoopin' cough and she couldn't leave it and daresn't bring it." This, by the way, is a favorite joke of Jake's, and seldom fails to win a smile from the 3' ounger portion of his audience. The idea of Jake having a wife and baby.

"I am sure, Jacob," said m}' mother, smiling faintlj'', "I should be glad to see your wife, if she could come with you."

" Well, ma'am, you just wait till a sartian little gal gets a half-dozen years older, and you may see stranger things than that," said he, with a significant glance at me. " If she only learns to eat partridge-meat and chestnuts, which is all we have down at our house, she may grow up so as to suit me. Just 5'ou look in this. Miss Alice, and see if j'ou can't find some better place for what is in here than in Jake's game-bag."

And I, knowing Jake's way too well to feel an}' oflfence at his remarks, or the way in which he profilers his well-meant gift, take it to the pantry, to find a plump pair of partridges, and the rest of the bag filled with chestnuts, as he had indicated, and I called mother to consult about the propriety of filling it with apples and a generous strip of pork ; and when I had done so I came back to hear Jake saying : —

" Most distressing circumstances, ma'am, and happening so sudden like. But, as the preacher said, ' In the midst of life we are in death,' and we don't know whose turn may come next. And now, I suppose, j'ou will be bi'eaking up and selling out. I declare it always makes me feel almost as bad as a funeral to see a man's little sticks and tools that he has worked to get together, just such as suit him, and that he has got used to, and the critters that he has taken care of till he likes them, faults and all, sold off at auction, and going East and West and North and South, 'mongst folks that don't think nothing of them only that they got them for so many cents. I reckon sometimes 'twould be better to do as the Injuns did. The^' had their bows and arrows and tools buried with 'em, and the horse killed on the grave, too, thej^ say. I know about the arrows and tools, anj'way, 'cause I've found them in the graves. But, to be sure, what a hole it would take to put in Squire Grey's tools, now ! "

" But," interposed Clarence, who felt as we all did, that Jake's jesting was a little ill-timed, "we are thinking of trying to get along without selling. I have been telling mother that Ned and I can run the farm so as to make a living off of it, and if there is anything we don't know how to do, or are not able to do, we must look to 3'ou to help us out. You would, I know, wouldn't you, Jake ? "

" Stand up and let me look at you, boy," said Jake, gravel}'. He did so, and we all looked. Not a very tall lad of his age, but broad-shouldered and well-made, with an earnest look upon his face that showed that he would not be hindered in carrying out his plan by trifles. "Why, 3^ou was only a boy when I helped 3'our father cut the bog meadow last fall, and now 30U look like a man. You'll do. How is Ned? can you help about this job, bo}-?"

16 HOW WE SAVED TIIE OLD FAEM.

"I am willing to do almost anything rather than to leave the old farm and see things sold off, and I can do lots of work when I have a mind to."

" Well said, Ned. I reckon 3-011 are the right grit, and if anything old Jake can do will help 3'er, j'ou need not be afraid to name it. I could run over for a day or two almost any time, and I know how to do lots of odd jobs that will come handy to j'ou chaps, I expect."

"I am sure, Jacob," said m}' mother, who, I fancied, did not quite like rushing so hastil^"^ to a conclusion of such an important matter, and perhaps thought Jake not the best adviser that could be chosen, " the bo^'s ought to be thankful for your very kind offer, and I am also ; but we have not yet decided upon it, and I must think it over and talk to Squire Grey about it before I agree to it ; and until then I should prefer not to have an3'thing said about it among the neighbors, so I hope 3'ou will not speak of it, Jacob."