We heard a few cannon fire-crackers, popping and
sputtering like distant machine guns, the last faint echoes of
the noisy demonstration that filled the streets the day before.
The noise soon died away and we thought how like the
politician's marvelous speeches and outward demonstrations! True
patriotism consists in something vastly more than the waving of
flags and eloquence, which the trying days of 1917 and '18
revealed. The orations were hot ones, and needed no fiery
remarks or burning glances from the eye to make them such, as
the mercury stood high in the nineties; yet some said they
enjoyed them. Perhaps they did, but as a fish might enjoy dry
land or an Esquimo the Sahara. Gladly we left it all for the
grand amphitheaters of the hills where Nature each day holds her
jubilees, filled with calm, serene enthusiasm that falls on one
as gentle as purple shades that linger about her wooded heights,
giving them that strange enchantment that is a part of their
real glory.
The sweeping hills were dotted with shocks of rye and wheat or
were covered with standing grain, and their acres shone like
gold in the level rays of the morning sun. Far and near the
farmers worked in their fields of corn and other grain, giving
vent to their joy by short snatches of song or loud, clear
whistling, as full and flute-like as the notes of the red birds
that sang in the trees which bordered them. The drought and
extreme heat had forced grain into premature ripeness and the
yield thereby was somewhat diminished. We passed men and boys on
the road going to some distant grainfield. They bade us good
morning with pleasant smiles. In like spirit we went to reap our
harvest. Theirs would feed the hungry, and they could at least
make out its value as so many bushels worth so many dollars and
cents. They saw in their vast yellow acres not the hungry their
grain could feed, but only a very small pile of gold. Watching
the mellow colors of the broadening landscape as we climbed the
long waves of earth we saw the yellow bundles of grain gleaming
like heaps of gold, and we seemed to hear Ruth singing as she
gleaned in the fields of Boaz and the lark carolling in the sky
above as sweetly as when we listened enraptured along the lovely
meadows of the Meuse or on the battle grounds of Waterloo. The
value of our harvest only Eternity may gauge.
As we watched the grain falling like phalanxes of soldiers cut
down in battle a nameless sadness filled our souls as we
thought:
"Though every summer green the plain
This harvest cannot bloom again."
Out where the land was broken by ravines and the woodbine hung
its long green ladders from the ironwood tree or made pillars of
Corinthian design of the gleaming sycamores which stood along
the banks of a stream, two boys were fishing. It was hard to
decide which made the more radiant picture: the softly
sculptured landscape or the glow of joy that beamed from those
shining boyish faces. How often had streams like this lured and
detained many well meaning lads who had only a bent pin for a
fishing hook and fish worms for bait, yet who had better luck
than many an older person you may know, for they baited their
hooks with their happy hearts.
Well do we recall how the siren songs of a little brook in early
spring, or it may have been the golden willows filled with
gurgling red wings, caused a court scene at school. The teacher
was one of that type who study the stars by night but never his
boys by day. He knew the golden willow not from the fragrance of
its early blossoms or the gurgling melodies of the red-winged
blackbird's song, but from the fact that they make excellent
switches which cut keenly, bend but do not break. The only time
he ever visited the brook was when he needed a new bundle of
switches. With a jury like that, little wonder the case went
clean against Willie.
Now Willie had missed school; that much was evident. So the
teacher called him up to his desk behind which he sat in his
revolving chair. Willie's face had been red, unusually so, and
glowed all morning like sumac seed against its green setting.
Willie came forward slowly. With downcast face he eyed a crack
in the floor near the teacher's desk while his right hand rested
tremblingly against his flushed forehead. "Willie, what makes
you tremble so?" asked the teacher in a gruff voice. "I-I'm
sick," came the feeble reply.
"Why did you miss school yesterday?" he repeated sternly.
"I-I fell into the creek on my way to school and got my feet
wet." As if to bring proof of what he said, he wiggled the toe
that the hole in his boot showed to best advantage. By this time
death-like silence reigned in the usually very noisy schoolroom.
Only the shrieking sound of a pencil toiling slowly up the steep
incline of a slate like an ungreased wagon up the Alleghanies
broke the silence. Strange it was that this sound, so noticeable
at other times, no one heard. Like a piece of grand opera music
this formed a sort of a musical prelude before the villain
appeared. But mark you the villain was not in front of the desk
but back of it, revolving like a pin wheel in an autumn gale.
Suddenly there was a wild waving of hands.
