“You mean eating too much?” asked Ralph teasingly. Then more seriously, he added, “A few of the men were burnt a little bit, but nothing to speak of. How beautiful your springtime is down here in New England. It makes me want to take off my coat and go to work right here, reclaiming some of these old worked-out acres, and making them show the good that still lies in them if they are plowed deep enough.”
Jean sighed quickly. “Do you really think one could ever make any money here?” she asked. “Sometimes I get awfully discouraged, Ralph. Of course, we didn’t come up here with the idea of being farmers. It was Dad’s health that brought us, but once we were here, we couldn’t help but see the chance of making Woodhow pay our way a little. Becky has told us we’re in awfully good luck to even get our vegetables and fruit out of it this last year, and it isn’t the past year I’m thinking of. It’s the next year, and the next one and the next. One of the most appalling things about Elmhurst is, that you get absolutely contented up here, and you go around singing blissfully. Old Pop Higgins who taught our art class down in New York always said that contentment was fatal to progress, and I believe it. Dad is really a brilliant man, and he’s getting his full strength back. And while I have a full sense of gratitude toward the healing powers of these old green hills, still I have a horror of Dad stagnating here.”
Ralph turned his head to watch her face. “Has he said anything himself about wanting to go back to his work?” he asked.
“Not yet. I suppose that is what we really must wait for. His own confidence returning. You see, what I’m afraid of is this. Dad was born and brought up right here, and the granite of these old hills is in his system. He loves every square foot of land around here. Just supposing he should be contented to settle down, like old Judge Ellis, and turn into a sort of Connecticut country squire.”
“There are worse things than that in the world,” Ralph replied. “Too many of our best men forget the land that gave them birth, and pour the full strength of their powers and capabilities into the city market. You speak of Judge Ellis. Look at what that old man’s mind has done for his home community. He has literally brought modern improvements into Elmhurst. He has represented her up at Hartford off and on for years, when he was not sitting in judgment here.”
“You mean, that you think Dad ought not to go back?” asked Jean, almost resentfully. “That just because he happened to have been born here, he owes it to Elmhurst to stay here now, and give it the best he has?”
Ralph laughed good-naturedly. “We’re getting into rather deep water, Jeannie,” he answered. “I can see that you don’t like the country, and I do. I love it down east here where all of my family came from originally, and I’m very fond of the West.”
“Oh, I’m sure I’d like that too,” broke in Jean eagerly. “Mother’s from the West, California, and I’d love to go out there. I would love the scope and freedom. What bothers me here are all those rock walls, for instance.” She pointed at the old one along the road, uneven, half tumbling down, and overgrown with gray moss—the standing symbol of the infinite patience and labor of a bygone generation. “Just think of all the people who spent their lives carrying those stones, and cutting up all this beautiful land into these little shut-in pastures.”
“Yes, but those rocks represent the clearing of fields for tillage. If they hadn’t dug them out of the ground, they wouldn’t have had any cause for Thanksgiving dinners. I’m extremely proud of my New England blood, and I want to tell you right now, if it wasn’t for the New England blood that went out to conquer the West, where would the West be today?”
“That’s OK,” said Jean, a little crossly, “but if they had pioneered a little bit right around here, there wouldn’t be so many run-down farms. What I would like to do, now that Dad is getting well, is make Woodhow our playground in summertime, and go back home in the winter.”