Outings at Odd Times

by Charles C. Abbott

It is a sad error to suppose that a rustic is akin to a fool; and a citizen’s real worth may be measured by his manner of speaking of the country people. That a significant difference obtains can scarcely be denied, but it is not one that altogether exalts the dweller in town and degrades the farmer. Will any one pretend to say that the latter is less intelligent or refined? The simple fact is, the two classes are differently educated: the townsman largely by books, the farmer to a great extent by his surroundings; the former comes by his facts through hearsay, the latter by observation. In other words, the citizen tends to artificiality, the farmer to naturalness. The one is educated, the other acquires knowledge. Dead, weigh their brains, and which may claim the greater number of ounces?

And here let me say, in passing, that not all knowledge worth possessing has yet got into books. Is it not true that the brightest features of current literature treat of the world outside a city’s limits? What, indeed, would modern novels be without something besides brick and mortar for a background? Will the reader become enthusiastic over a story the scenes of which shift only from Brown’s parlor to Jones’s and back again?

The thrifty farmer may see nothing that attracts in the ball-room, and fail to follow the thread of the story, or be charmed by the airs of an opera; but has he not a compensation therefor in the Gothic arches of his woodland, beneath which tragedy and comedy are daily enacted? And what of the songs at sunrise, when the thrush, the grosbeak, and a host of warblers greet him at the outset of his daily toil?

Town and country are interdependent; but, considered calmly and in all its bearings, does not the former ask more of the latter, than vice versa? Has not the influx of rural vigor an incalculable value? Does it not prevent, in fact, the very destruction of the city, by checking the downward course that artificiality necessarily takes?

But, as the heading of this article indicates, I do not propose to enter into any controversy as to the relative merits of city or country life, but simply to state why I prefer the latter. And may all those to whom my reasons seem insufficient flock to the towns and become, what our country certainly needs, good citizens.

I prefer an oak-tree to a temple; grass to a brick pavement; wild flowers beneath a blue sky to exotic orchids under glass. I would walk where I do not risk being jostled, and, if I see fit to swing my arms, leap a ditch, or climb a tree, I want no gaping crowd, when I do so, to hedge me in. In short, I prefer living “next neighbor to Nature.” I am free to admit I know very little about the town. It has ever been a cheerless place to me: cold as charity in winter, hot as an oven in summer, and lacking nearly all those features that make the country well-nigh a paradise in spring and autumn. Vividly do I recall the saddest sight in my experience—that of seeing on the window-sill of a wretched tenement-house a broken flower-pot holding a single wilted buttercup, and near it was the almost fleshless face of a little child.

To be indifferent to the town is to be misanthropic, says one; and is affectation, says another. Perhaps so; I neither know nor care. It concerns me only to know it is the truth. None loves company better than I; but may I not choose my friends? If I prefer my neighbor’s dog to my neighbor, why not? I have not injured him, and, if harm comes of it, it is the dog that suffers. Have not most people far too many friends? Hoping to please all, you impress no one. You hold yourself up as a model, and the chances are you are secretly voted a bore. Certainly, he who lives where human neighbors are comparatively few and far between runs the least risk of social disasters.

But there is a deal in the world besides humanity worth living for; and I count it that the world was not made for man more than for his brute neighbors. They, too, and their haunts, are worthy of man’s contemplation.

Is it spring? I would catch the first whisperings of the soft south wind, and hug the precious secret known, save to the flowers, only to myself. And, as the days roll by, would watch the opening leaf-buds one by one, and greet the first blossoms peeping above the dead year’s scattered leaves. Is this a waste of time? If so, how is it, then, that the earliest spring flowers need but to be taken to town to set the people, one and all, agape? Is it nothing to brighten the dull eyes of the weary toilers in the city? Verily, a violet plucked in February preaches a refreshing sermon. And, yet again, when a faint shimmer of green tints the wide landscape, I would catch the earliest note of the returning bird as it floats across the wide meadow or rings with startling clearness through the wood. Perchance along the river’s shore I would hear the heaped ice crack and groan as the breath of Spring snaps its bonds and sends this rugged gift of Winter whirling to the sea.

Is it summer? I would catch the fragrant breeze at dawn, and mark the day’s beauteous progress step by step; gather good cheer from the merry thrushes’ song, and chirp as lustily as the robin though my task be long. Even at noontide, be it never so sultry, I would take heart from the brave field-sparrow’s hopeful tone, and lighten my labor with the anticipation of long hours of rest, when the world’s best gift comes to the fore—a moonlit summer night. Surely it is something to go hand in hand with the year’s ripening harvest, for Nature unfolds many a secret then, more strange than any fairy tale and more helpful than any fevered fancy of vague theorist. Armed with such knowledge, the countryman is well equipped to solve the problem of his life; and does not the toiler in the town ask more frequently than all others that fearful question, Is life worth living?