Farmington

by Clarence Darrow

To the kind old miller the condition of the water in the pond was doubtless quite another thing, and every revolution of the groaning wheel must have meant bread to him,—not only bread for the customers whose grain he ground, but sorely needed bread for the hungry mouths of those who had no thought or care whence or how it came, but only unbounded faith that it would always be ready to satisfy their needs.

It is only by imagination, through the hard experience life has brought, that I know these familiar things had a different meaning to the old miller and to me. Yet even now I am not sure that they had for him a deeper or more vital sense. Perhaps the water for my swimming-hole was as important as the water for his bread. For after all both were needed, in their several ways, to make more tolerable the ever illusive game of life.

But I must describe Farmington and its people as they seemed to me,—as in fact they were to me, according to their utility in the small schemes of a little child.

The world seems to take for granted that every parent is a hero to his children, and that they look to the father and mother as to almost superhuman beings whose power they cannot understand but can rely upon with implicit faith. Even the street-car signs tell this old tale, and advertise “pies like mother used to make.” No doubt the infant looks with perfect confidence into the eyes of the mother who gave it birth, and in its tender years the child has the utmost trust in the wisdom and protection of the parent to whom it has always looked to satisfy its needs. But I cannot remember that in my youth either I, or any of my companions, had the feeling and regard for our parents that is commonly assumed. In fact, we believed that, as to wisdom and general ability to cope with the affairs of life, we were superior to them; and we early came to see their shortcomings rather than their strength. I cannot say that I looked upon my mother even as a cook exactly in the light of the street-car advertisements, but I distinctly recall that often when I visited the woodsheds of neighboring children and was kindly given a piece of pie or cake, I went back home and told my mother how much better this pie tasted than the kind she baked, and asked her why she did not make pies and cakes the way the neighbors did; but to all these suggestions I ever got the same reply,—if I did not like her cooking I could go elsewhere to board. Of course this put a stop to all discussion. I am quite certain that it is only after long years of absence, when we look back upon our childhood homes, the bread and pies are mixed with a tender sentiment that makes us imagine they were better than in fact they really were. I rather fancy that if our mother’s cooking were set before us once again, we should need the strong primitive appetite of our youth to make it taste as our imagination tells us that it did.

As to my father, I am sure I never thought he was a man of extraordinary power. In fact, from the time I was a little child I often urged him to do things in a different way,—especially as to his rules about my studies and my schooling. I never believed that he ran the mill in the best way; and I used to think that other men were stronger or richer, or kinder to their children, than my father was to us. It was only after years had passed, and I looked back through the hazy mist that hung about his ambitions and his life, that I could realize how great he really was. As a child, I had no doubt that any man could create conditions for himself; the copy-books had told me so, and the teachers had assured us in the most positive way that our success was with ourselves. It took years of care and toil to show me that life is stronger than man, that conditions control individuals. It is with this knowledge that I look back at the old miller, with his fatal love of books; that I see him as he surveys every position the world offers to her favored sons. He knows them all and understands them all, and he knows the conditions on which they have ever been bestowed; yet he could bury these ambitions one by one, and cover them so deep as almost to forget they had once been a portion of his life, and in full sight of the glories of the promised land could day by day live in the dust and hum of his ever-turning mill, and take from the farmer’s grist the toll that filled the mouths of his little brood. To appreciate and understand the greatness of the simple life, one must know life; and this the child of whatever age can never understand.

After my father and mother,—whom I did not appreciate, and who, I am bound to think, but half understood me,—no other men or women came very near my life. My relations were with the boys and girls,—especially the boys. The men and women were there only to board and clothe the children, and furnish them with a place to sleep at night. To be sure, we knew something of all the men and women in the town, but we saw them only through childish eyes. There was the blacksmith, who was very strong, and whom we liked and called “clever” because he sometimes helped us with our games. There was one old farmer in particular, who had a large orchard and a fierce dog, and who would let his apples rot on the ground rather than give us one to eat. We hated him, and called him stingy and a miser. Perhaps he was not that sort of man at all, and the dog may not have been so very fierce. No doubt someone had given them bad names, and the people preferred to believe evil of them instead of good. Then there was the town drunkard, whom all of us knew. We liked him when he was sober, although we were told that he was very bad; but he always laughed and joked with us, and watched our games in a friendly way, but when we heard that he was drunk we were all afraid of him and ran away. Then there was another man who kept a little store, and we knew he was very rich; we had no idea how much he was really worth, but anyhow we knew that he was rich. And so on, through all the neighborhood, we knew something of the men, and classified them by some one trait or supposed fact,—just as the grown-up world always persists it has a right to do. The women, too, we knew even better than the men, for it was the mothers who controlled the boys, and in almost every case it depended on them alone whether or not the boys might go and play. Still, we children only knew and cared about the grown-up people in a remote secondary way. Every home was full of boys, and by common affinity these boys were always together,—at least, as many of them as could get away from home. As a rule, the goodness and desirability of a parent were in exact proportion to the ease with which the children could get away from home. I am afraid that in this child’s-world my good parents stood very low upon the list,—much lower than I wished them to stand.

We children had our regular seasons’ round of games and sports. There was no part of the year in which we could not play, and each season had its special charm. There might not have been much foundation for the custom, but somehow certain games always came at certain times. When the season was over the games were dropped unceremoniously and left for another year.

Of course the little creek and the great mill-pond and the river were sources of never-failing delight. I cannot remember when I learned to swim, but I learned it very young and very well; and it was lucky I did, for I have been in deep water many times since then. The boys seemed to prefer water to land,—that is, water like a pond or a stream. We did not care for the kitchen tub and the wash-basin. It was the constant aim of our parents and teachers to keep us out of the water for at least a portion of the time, and they laid down strict rules as to when and how often we should go swimming. But when boys are away from home they are apt to forget what teachers and parents say; and we always contrived to get more swimming than the rules prescribed. This would have been easier except for the fact that it generally took us so long to dry our hair, and our teachers and parents could often detect our swimming by simply feeling of our heads. I shall always remember that a boy was never supposed to be a complete swimmer until he could swim the “big bend.” There was a bend in the river, which was very broad and deep, and a favorite swimming-place for the larger boys. I well remember the first time I swam across, and I have accomplished few feats that compared with this. All my life I had supposed that the big bend was very broad and deep, until I made a special examination of the place on my last visit, a little time ago, and really it was so changed that I could almost wade across. Still, at that very time there were little boys in the stream just getting ready to perform the same feat that I had accomplished long ago.

The same water that served us in summer-time delighted us equally in the winter months. We learned to skate as early as we learned to swim. Our skates were not the fancy kind that are used to-day, but were made of steel and wood, and were fastened to our boots with straps. Few boys could skate long without the straps coming loose; but then, a few difficulties more or less have little terror for a boy. It would be hard to make a town better fitted for boys than Farmington; even the high hills were made for coasting in the winter-time. In fact, nothing was lacking to us except that our parents and teachers were not so kind and considerate as they should have been.

In the summer-time we often climbed to the top of the hills and looked down the valley to see the river winding off on its everlasting course. Then we would fancy that we were mountaineers and explorers, and would pick our way along the hills with the beautiful valley far beneath. I do not know why we climbed the hills in the summer-time. It could not have been for the scenery, which was really very fine; for boys care little for this sort of thing. The love of Nature comes with maturing years and is one of the few compensations for growing old. More and more as the years go by we love the sun and the green earth, the silent mountains and the ever-moving sea. It seems as if slowly and all unawares our Mother Nature prepares and ripens us to be taken back into her all-embracing breast.