IV THE EDUCATION OF GRIGGS
We had lived for two months at Waydean, and, although as far as agricultural operations were concerned we might as well have been in the city, I had begun to appreciate the delights of a country life without the usual drudgery, worry and expense. I was not raising grain at two dollars a bushel to sell for fifty cents, or making butter at a cost of a dollar a pound to sell for a quarter of a dollar, but I had time during the hot weather to enjoy the sight of Peter Waydean's waving fields as I swung in a hammock under the trees, while that old sinner frizzled in the glaring sunlight over his work. Occasionally I refreshed myself by sauntering to the field where he happened to be working, to have a little friendly conversation with him, and I never failed to let him know that new beauties were revealed to me day by day in the agreement to pay him an extra hundred dollars for working his own land. At first he had showed signs of looking upon me with the contemptuous irritation of an angler who has accidentally landed a mud-pout, but when I artlessly hinted that I would have been willing to pay a higher rent for the place rather than make a slave of myself as he did, I could see that his previous delight in his own cleverness was completely overshadowed by the bitter regret that he had not made more of his opportunity.
We had no cattle of our own, but Peter's were in plain view in the lower field. We had no sheep, but Peter's little flock picturesquely dotted the landscape. We didn't own a horse, but, after all, Marion had a terror of being run away with, and I had made an inflexible rule never to go within range of a horse's hind legs. And in the matter of confining my farm expenditure to the price of a spade, a rake and a hoe, I had been most loyal and consistent; I had stuck not only to the letter of our agreement, but also to the spirit. Indeed, I was not merely resigned, but cheerful, knowing that the more closely I appeared to cling to Marion's plan the sooner would she begin to waver.
But a chance remark that I overheard Abner Davis make one morning as I boarded the train changed my mental attitude in an instant. "He ain't no reg'lar farmer—oh, Jiminy, no!—ha, ha!—he's jest"—How he finally labelled me to his fellow-rustic I never heard, for the train slowed up at the platform, and his voice was drowned in the noise. I just had time to turn, before I stepped on board, to cast a withering glance backwards—a glance that was wasted, however, for Abner was poking the other man in the side with his thumb and they were both doubled over with merriment. Of course, he hadn't intended me to hear, and I was quite aware that I was not a farmer, either regular or irregular, but it was this fact that made the remark so galling. There are two things I cannot bear: one is what Marion calls the truth, for that always turns out to be something odious and objectionable; the other is ridicule. That morning my mind was filled with bitterness, for Abner Davis had managed to combine in one brief remark the essence of much that I disliked to hear. The rhythmic beat of the car-wheels clanked out the derisive refrain, "He ain't—no reg—'lar far—mer!" By the time I reached the city I had decided it was due to my self-respect to put things on a different basis. Certainly, I was not a farmer. I had neither a horse, nor a cow, nor a sheep—no, not even a guinea-pig! I had no agricultural implements, except,—oh, hateful thought!—a spade, a rake and a hoe.
I was in this mood when Harold Jones unloaded Griggs upon me in the restaurant where I was taking lunch. I knew from the twinkle in Harold's eye when he introduced us that he meant mischief. "Griggs," he explained to me, "has got farm-on-the-brain. Carton," he explained to Griggs, "had such a severe attack that his mind is unhinged. He imagines—ha, ha!—that he's a farmer! Now you two sit down and exchange symptoms. I have to get back to the office."
I treated Griggs with distant civility, not because he was thrust upon me, but because it usually takes me a year or more to get beyond formalities with an acquaintance. But Griggs was impervious to hauteur; he was unconstrained and hearty enough for two. I could see that Harold had spoken the truth in his case, for his farming mania was at its height, and he was overjoyed at finding a man who had done what he merely dreamed of doing. He was a produce commission merchant, he told me, and he was convinced that he could double his income and prolong his life by running a farm in connection with his business. It was a simple proposition, he stated, that a child could grasp. A farmer makes a profit by farming, a commission merchant by commissioning; therefore, if the merchant were also a farmer would he not absorb both profits?
Griggs tilted his chair, hooked his thumbs into his waistcoat, and challenged me to point out a flaw in his theory. I declined, for the simple reason, I said, that it was flawless; then I rose to make my escape. Griggs adjured me to sit down for a minute; he had a few questions to ask, and I was the man of all men to give him the information he sought.