He has come from over near the edge of the timber, where he has been repairing a decayed rail fence. His greeting is kindly, and we are made to feel quite at home. Some fresh buttermilk from an old-fashioned churn near the back door adds to the pleasant hospitality, and the loud cackling of a proud and energetic rooster, adorned with brilliant plumage, who takes credit for the warm egg which a dignified old hen has just left in the corner of the corn crib, lends an air of cheerfulness and animation to the scene. He has just learned of the achievement, and the glory is his.
Out in the yard is a covered box with a circular hole in its front. A small chain leads into it, which is attached to the outside by a staple. After a few minutes the furtive wild eyes of a captive coon peer out fearfully from the inner darkness of the box. He was extracted from the cosy interior of a hollow tree, over near the edge of the swamp, during his infancy, and was the sole survivor of a moonlight attack on his home tree, after the dogs had located the happy family. The tree was cut down, the little furry things mangled by savage teeth, and their house made desolate. The little fellow was carried into a hopeless captivity, where his days and nights are passed in terror. He is a prisoner and not a pet.
It is mankind that does these things—not the brutes—and yet we cry out in denunciation when humanity is thus outraged. We chain and cage the wild things, and shriek for freedom of thought and action. Verily this is a strange world!
I talked with one of the little girls about the coon. She told me his story and said they called him “Tip.” My heart went out to him, and I longed to take him under my coat, carry him into the deep woods, and bid him God speed. He probably would have bitten me had I attempted it, but in this he would have been justified from his point of view, for he had never had a chance in his despoiled life to learn that there could be sympathy in a human touch. In this poor Tip is not alone in the world.
Time slumbers in the back country. The weekly paper is the only printed source of news from the outside, and, with the addition of a monthly farm magazine, with its woman’s department, constitutes the literature of the home. These periodicals are read by the light of the big kerosene lamp on the table in the middle of the room, and the facts and opinions found in them become gospel.
The country village is perhaps a couple of miles farther inland. There is a water-mill on the little river, and bags of wheat and corn are taken to it to be ground. The miller—sleepy-eyed and white—comes out and helps to unload the incoming grain, or deposit the flour or meal in the back part of the wagon.
The general store and post-office is on the main road, near the mill. The proprietor is the oracle of the community, and a fountain of wit and wisdom. The store is the clearing-house for the news and gossip of the passing days.
A weather-beaten sign across the front of the building reads, “The Center of the World.” The owner declares that “this must be so, fer the edges of it are just the same distance off from the store, no matter which way ye look.”
There is much unconscious philosophy in the quaintly humorous sign, for, after all, how little we realize the immensity of the material and intellectual world that is beyond our own horizon. The homely wit touches incisively one of the foibles of human kind.