I was no longer any good at potboiling and could not endure the work. I had a couple of hundred dollars saved, and it was my purpose to write the much talked-of “great American novel.” I counted the days until spring would be far enough advanced so that I could go to the country. I had in mind Lake Massawippi in Quebec, just over the New York border; I was so impatient that I set out in the middle of April, and when I emerged upon the platform of the sleeping car and looked at the lake, I found it covered with ice and snow; the train was creeping along at three or four miles an hour, over tracks a foot under water.
My one desire was to be alone; far away, somewhere in a forest, where the winds of ecstasy might sweep through my spirit. I made inquiries of real-estate agents, who had no poetry in their souls and showed me ordinary cottages. At last I set out in a snowstorm, and walked many miles down the lake shore, and discovered a little slab-sided cabin—a dream cottage all alone in a place called Fairy Glen. It belonged to a woman in Baltimore and could be rented for May, June, and July for twenty-five dollars. With the snow still falling, I moved in my belongings. The place had one large room, a tiny bedroom, and a kitchen, everything a would-be poet could desire.
I built a fire in the open fireplace, and warmed my face while my back stayed cold; that first night I fiddled vigorously to keep my courage up, while creatures unknown made noises in the forest outside and smelled at my bacon hanging on the back porch. Next day I walked to town to do some purchasing. Snow was still falling. I met a farmer driving a load of straw or something to town, and he pulled up his horses and stared at the unexpected stranger. “Hello! Be you a summer boarder?” “Yes,” I confessed. “Well”—and the old fellow looked about at the snowflakes in the air—“which summer?”
I had fires of the heart to warm me, and I began to write my wonderful novel—the story of a woman’s soul redeemed by high and noble love. Springtime and Harvest I called it, and it was made out of the life story of a woman I had known, a girl of great beauty who had married a crippled man for his money, and had come to understand his really fine mind. At least that is what I imagined had happened; I didn’t really know either the woman or the man—I didn’t know anything in those days except music and books and my own emotions.
I would, I fear, be embarrassed to read Springtime and Harvest now; not even loyalty to this present task has caused me to open its pages. But at that time I was sure it was the most wonderful novel ever written. I always do think that about every book I write; the blurb the publisher puts on the jacket—“This is Upton Sinclair’s best work”—is perfectly sincere so far as the author is concerned. I write in a fine glow, expecting to convert my last hostile critic; and when I fail, the shock of disappointment is always as severe as ever.
XIII
Springtime came at last, and the Fairy Glen was carpeted with flowers. The little brook in front of the door sang songs to me, and I to it:
I ask you where in your journey
You see so fair a sight,
That you have joy and singing
All through the winter night.
The sunrise over the lake was a daily miracle, and the great winds that lashed the forest trees were brothers to my soul. Again and again that ecstasy came to me—no one to interfere with it now—and I labored days and nights on end to catch it and imprison it in words.
There were comical incidents in my hermithood, of course. Wild things came to steal the butter that I kept in the spring; I set a trap, and behold, it was nothing more romantic than a skunk. The little devil ruined a pair of trousers for me—I not knowing his ways. I left the trousers to soak in the stream for a week, but all in vain. Worse yet, my drinking place was ruined for the entire summer.