Chapter XXIV
SOME RURAL PROBLEMS
There are many mysteries of marriage, quite unanticipated by the bachelor before he changes his state. Not the least of them is the new range of social relations and impulses which follow a happy union. I do not mean social relations with a capital S. About such I know little and care less. Presumably marriage may bring them, also, into the life of a man who chooses the wrong wife. In fact, Stella and I have seen more than one case of it in Bentford, where we dwell near enough to the fringes of Society to observe the parasitic aspirations of several ladies with more fortune than “position.” Mrs. Eckstrom, we have discovered since her call, is such a one. We, of course, were of no use to her, and she had not troubled us since, though two gold fish did arrive that night, as I have told. We are grateful for Antony and Cleopatra.
No, what I mean by social relations and impulses are the opportunities for service and the impulses to jump in and help others, which matrimony discloses and breeds. Who can say why this is so? Who can say why the bachelor is generally negatively–if not actively–selfish, while the same man when he has achieved a good wife, opened a house of his own, begun to employ labour directly instead of through the medium of a club or bachelor apartment hotel, is suddenly aware of wrong conditions in the world about him and a new desire to help set them right? It cannot entirely be due to the woman, for very often her maiden life has been as barren of social service as his own. It is inherent in the state of matrimony, and to me it seems one of the glories of that state. Those couples who have not felt it, I think, have been but sterilely mated, though they have reproduced their kind never so many times.
At any rate, it was not long after the Eckstrom invasion that Stella and I went to play golf, carrying a load of lettuce heads and cauliflowers to market on our way. As all Bert’s cauliflowers are sold in bulk to a New York commission merchant, I found I had the local market pretty much to myself, and was getting 15 cents a head for my plants. Mike dearly loved cauliflowers, and babied ours as a flower gardener babies his hybrid tea roses. They were splendid heads, and were bringing me in a dollar a day or more. I had visions of greatly increasing my output another season, for I could easily supply the two hotels as well.
We left our farm wagon in the church horse-sheds and went down to the links. There was a crowd of caddies of all ages sitting on the benches reserved for them, and half a dozen came rushing toward us. I chose a large boy, because I am one of those idiots who carries around at least seven more clubs than he ever uses, and Stella picked a smaller boy because she liked his face. As golf is not an engrossing game when you are playing with your wife, and she’s a beginner into the bargain (matrimony has its drawbacks, too!) we fell to talking with our caddies.
“You must be in the high school, eh?” said I to mine.
“I went last year,” he replied, “but I ain’t goin’ no more. Goin’ to work.”
“Work at your age? What are you going to do?” asked Stella.
“I dunno–somethin’,” he answered.