“I've rarely seen anything more beautiful,” I said, “than this field and the view across it—I'm taking that crop now, and later I shall gather in the rowen of goldenrod and aster, and the red and yellow of the maple trees—and store it all away in my bank—to live on next winter.”
It was some time before either of us spoke again, but I could see from the corner of my eye that mighty things were going on inside of Horace; and suddenly he broke out into a big laugh and clapped his knee with his hand in a way he has.
“Is that all!” said Horace.
I think it only confirmed him in the light esteem in which he held me. Though I showed him unmeasured wealth in his own fields, ungathered crops of new enjoyment, he was unwilling to take them, but was content with hay. It is a strange thing to me, and a sad one, how many of our farmers (and be it said in a whisper, other people, too) own their lands without ever really possessing them: and let the most precious crops of the good earth go to waste.
After that, for a long time, Horace loved to joke me about my crops and his. A joke with Horace is a durable possession.
“S'pose you think that's your field,” he'd say.
“The best part of it,” I'd return, “but you can have all I've taken, and there'll still be enough for both of us.”
“You're a queer one!” he'd say, and then add sometimes, dryly, “but there's one crop ye don't git, David,” and he'd tap his pocket where he carries his fat, worn, leather pocket-book. “And as fer feelin's, it can't be beat.”
So many people have the curious idea that the only thing the world desires enough to pay its hard money for is that which can be seen or eaten or worn. But there never was a greater mistake. While men will haggle to the penny over the price of hay, or fight for a cent more to the bushel of oats, they will turn out their very pockets for strange, intangible joys, hopes, thoughts, or for a moment of peace in a feverish world the unknown great possessions.
So it was that one day, some months afterward, when we had been thus bantering each other with great good humour, I said to him: