Days in the Open

by Lathan A. Crandall

“You never saw my old home, did you? Well, the house stood at the foot of a hill and close by a little stream. In the summer time the wild strawberries in the meadow above the orchard were so thick that I remember picking a bushel there one day. For raspberries and blackberries we usually went some three or four miles to Babcock Hollow, but once there you could fill a ten-quart pail in no time at all, and they were the sweetest, most luscious berries you ever tasted. Then, in the fall, came apple picking and potato digging and corn cutting and nut gathering. There were dozens of butternut trees in the pasture-lot through which the creek ran, and on Button Hill you could get all the chestnuts you wished. Did you ever gather beechnuts? They are so little that picking them up by hand is slow work. We used to take three or four sheets, spread them under a beech tree, after the first frost had opened the burrs, and then one of the boys would climb the tree and pound the limbs, sending the nuts down upon the sheets in showers.

“But the winters! When there was a good crust on the snow you could start on your sled at the patch of woods on the top of the hill, nearly a mile away, and ride right into our barnyard. I’ve done it many a time. Skating! We could go almost straight away for miles on the river. One night when Jim Gilbert’s people were away from home I got permission to stay all night with him.

I took my skates along and after supper we came down to the river and skated. The moon was full and it was almost as light as day. I must have been careless, for I skated too near an open place and broke through. Jim was just behind me, and, before he could stop or change his course, he had stubbed his toe on me and in he went, head first. The water was shallow, so there was no danger, but we had a mile to walk in our wet clothes, and all the way up hill. I remember that our clothes were frozen stiff when we reached Jim’s house. We built a roaring fire, stripped off our wet clothes and put on some that were dry, and then sat up until one o’clock eating chestnuts and popcorn and talking about what we would do when we were men. Jim had an idea that he would be a lawyer, but the last time I saw him he was selling tooth paste at the county fair.

“In some ways spring in the country is not remarkably attractive. The fields are brown and bare and soggy, and the winds cannot fairly be called zephyrs. As the frost leaves the ground the roads become rivers of mud, and some of the “sinkholes” seem bottomless. Early spring is easily the most unlovely time of the year in the country, but even then life has its brighter side. With the first breath of the south wind the sap begins to leave the roots of the hard maples and the sugar season begins.

“Did you ever work in a sugar-bush? No? Poor fellow! You’ve missed something worth while out of your life. I understand that nowadays they evaporate the sap in shallow pans; we used to boil it in a big iron kettle. We did not have many maples on our place, so I sometimes worked for Deacon Bouton, who had the next farm west of ours. He had a big sugar-bush, and we carried the pails of sap on neck-yokes. When we had a big run of sap we had to boil all night as well as during the day. I’ll never forget one night when we had a feast. There were two boys besides myself: Ed Bouton, the deacon’s son, and John Hammond. Ed had brought forty-five hen’s eggs and John added five goose eggs. We boiled the eggs in the sap, and the three of us ate those forty-five hen’s eggs and started on the goose eggs. For some reason we did not relish them. Possibly the hen’s eggs had taken the keen edge from our appetites.

“But how I’m running on! Regret being born in the country? Do you know that I can shut my eyes and see the hills and meadows and orchard, fairer than any ever put in colours on the canvas? I can see the oriole’s nest swinging from a branch of the big elm in the corner of our yard and the nest of the pewee under the bridge. Just across the road in the meadow are glorious masses of violets, and mother’s peonies and sweet pinks beat anything I’ve ever seen since. When I’m dog-tired from the day’s work it rests me just to think of the quiet and calm and beauty of the old home among the hills.

“And there’s another thing that I want to tell you: when I go into the country I can enjoy it. One of my best friends, born in the city, is bored almost to death every time he tries to take a vacation in the country. He doesn’t know the difference between a hard maple and a tamarack, and asked me once if a woodchuck was likely to attack a human being if not angered. He’s afraid of bees and garter snakes, and even a friendly old “daddy-long-legs” gives him a nervous shock. He can’t enjoy the fields and flowers, for he was brought up on people and bricks. I’d like to be back there at the old place this minute. I’ll bet I could find some raspberries on the bushes that grow in the fence corners along the west road. We used to string them on timothy stalks as we came home from school, and I’ve never tasted any such berries since.”

The witness is through with his testimony and we’ll submit the case to the jury without argument. What do you say, fathers and mothers of the city? Shall your children have a chance to learn nature’s secrets at first hand? Will you give them some time in the open every year, where the work of man has not elbowed the work of God into a corner and out of sight? More, will you help to send the children of the poor, children whose playground is the city street, and to whom the stories of green fields and limpid streams and flowers that belong to any who will gather them, sound like fairy tales—will you give to these children of the tenement and the slums days where the sunshine is not filtered through a bank of smoke and all the ministry of God’s unspoiled work strengthens them for the coming days of toil?