“surely man is a wonderfull divers and varying subject: it is very hard to ground and directly constant and uniforme judgement upon him.”
though i live most of the time in the country, as i love best to do, sometimes i go to the city and find there much that is strange and amusing. i like to watch the inward flow of the human tide in the morning, and the ebb at evening, and sometimes in the slack tide of noon i drift in one of the eddies where the restless life of the city pauses a moment to refresh itself. one of the eddies i like best of all is near the corner of madison square, where the flood of twenty-third street swirls around the bulkhead of the metropolitan tower to meet the transverse currents of madison avenue. here, of a bright morning when down-at-heels is generously warming himself on the park benches, and old defeat watches young hurry striding by, one has a royal choice of refreshment: a “red-hot” enfolded in a bun from the dingy sausage wagon at the curb, or a plum for a penny from the italian with the trundle cart, or news of the world in lurid gulps from the noon edition of the paper—or else a curious idea or so flung out stridently over the heads of the crowd by a man on a soap box.
i love this corner of the great city; i love the sense of the warm human tide flowing all about me. i love to look into the strange, dark, eager, sensitive, blunt faces.
the other noon, drifting there in that human eddy, i stopped to listen to a small, shabby man who stood in transitory eminence upon his soap box, half his body reaching above the knobby black soil of human heads around him—black, knobby soil that he was seeking, there in the spring sunshine, to plough with strange ideas. he had ruddy cheeks and a tuft of curly hair set like an upholstery button on each side of his bald head. the front teeth in his upper jaw were missing, and as he opened his mouth one could see the ample lining of red flannel.
he raised his voice penetratingly to overcome the noise of the world, straining until the dark-corded veins of his throat stood out sharply and perspiration gleamed on his bald forehead. as though his life depended upon the delivery of his great message he was explaining to that close-packed crowd that there was no god.
from time to time he offered for sale pamphlets by r.g. ingersoll and frederic harrison, with grimy back numbers of a journal called the “truth-seeker.”
by the slant and timbre of his speech he was an englishman; he had a gift of vigorous statement, and met questioners like an intellectual pugilist with skilful blows between the eyes: and his grammar was bad.
i stood for some time listening to him while he proved with excellent logic, basing his reasoning on many learned authorities, that there was no god. his audience cheered with glee his clever hits, and held up their hands for the books he had for sale.
“who is this speaker?” i asked the elbowing helper who came through the crowd to deliver the speaker's wares and collect the silver for them. “who is this speaker who says there is no god?”
“henry moore,” he responded.
“and who,” i asked, “is henry moore?”
“he is an englishman and was brought up a presbyterian—but he seen the light.”
“and no longer thinks there is any god?”
“nope.”
“and these books prove the same thing?”
“yep.”
so i bought one of them, thinking it wonderful that proof of so momentous a conclusion could be had for so small a sum.
this henry moore could fling arguments like thunderbolts; he could marshall his authorities like an army; he could talk against the roar of the city and keep his restless audience about him; and if he did not believe in god he had complete faith in haeckel and jacques loeb, and took at face value the lightest utterances of john stuart mill.
i enjoyed listening to henry moore. i enjoyed looking into the faces all around me—mostly keen foreign or half-foreign faces, and young faces, and idle faces, and curious faces, and faces that drank in, and faces that disdainfully rejected.
after a time, however, i grew unaccountably weary of the vehemence of henry moore and of the adroit helper who hawked his books. and suddenly i looked up into the clear noon blue of the ancient sky. a pigeon was flying across the wide open spaces of the square, the sunlight glinting on its wings. i saw the quiet green tops of the trees in the park, and the statue of roscoe conkling, turning a nonchalant shoulder toward the heated speaker who said there was no god. how many strange ideas, contradictory arguments, curious logic, have fallen, this last quarter century, upon the stony ears of roscoe conkling! far above me the metropolitan tower, that wonder work of men, lifted itself grandly to the heavens, and all about i suddenly heard and felt the roar and surge of the mighty city, the mighty, careless, busy city, thousands of people stirring about me, souls full of hot hopes and mad desires, unsatisfied longings, unrealized ideals. and i stepped out of the group who were gathered around the man who said there was no god....
but i still drifted in the eddy, thinking how wonderful and strange all these things were, and came thus to another group, close gathered at the curb. it was much smaller than the other, and at the centre stood a patriarchal man with a white beard, and with him two women. he was leaning against the iron railing of the park, and several of the free-thinker's audience, freshly stuffed with arguments, had engaged him hotly. just as i approached he drew from his pocket a worn, leather-covered bible, and said, tapping it with one finger:
“for forty years i have carried this book with me. it contains more wisdom than any other book in the world. your friend there can talk until he is hoarse—it will do no harm—but the world will continue to follow the wisdom of this book.”
a kind of exaltation gleamed in his eye, and he spoke with an earnestness equal to that of henry moore. he, too, was a street speaker, waiting with his box at his side to begin. he would soon be standing up there to prove, also with logic and authority, that there was a god. he, also, would plough that knobby black soil of human heads with the share of his vehement faith. the two women were with him to sing their belief, and one had a basket to take up a collection, and the other, singling me out as i listened with eagerness, gave me a printed tract, a kind of advertisement of god.
i looked at the title of it. it was called: “god in his world.”
“does this prove that god is really in the world?” i asked.
“yes,” she said. “will you read it?”
“yes,” i said, “i am glad to get it. it is wonderful that so great a truth can be established in so small a pamphlet, and all for nothing.”
she looked at me curiously, i thought, and i put the tract by the side of the pamphlet i had bought from the freethinker, and drifted again in the eddy.
the largest crowd of all was close packed about a swarthy young chap whose bushy hair waved in response to the violence of his oratory. he, too, was perspiring with his ideas. he had a marvellous staccato method of question and answer. he would shoot a question like a rifle bullet at the heads of his audience, and then stiffen back like a wary boxer, both clenched hands poised in a tremulous gesticulation, and before any one could answer his bullet-like question, he was answering it himself. as i edged my way nearer to him i discovered that he, also, had a little pile of books at his feet which a keen-eyed assistant was busily selling. how well-established the technic of this art of the city eddies! how well-studied the psychology!
i thought this example the most perfect of them all, and watched with eagerness the play of the argument as it was mirrored in the intent faces all about me. and gradually i grew interested in what the man was saying, and thought of many good answers i could give to his questionings if he were not so cunning with answers of his own. finally, in the midst of one of his loftiest flights, he demanded, hotly:
“are you not, every one of you, a slave of the capitalist class?”
it was perfectly still for a second after he spoke, and before i knew what i was doing, i responded:
“why, no, i'm not.”
it seemed to astonish the group around me: white faces turned my way.
but it would have been difficult to dash that swarthy young man. he was as full of questions as a porcupine is full of quills.
“well, sir,” said he, “if i can prove to you that you are a slave, will you believe it?”
“no,” i said, “unless you make me feel like a slave, too! no man is a slave who does not feel slavish.”
but i was no match for that astonishing young orator; and he had the advantage over me of a soap box! moreover, at that moment, the keen-eyed assistant, never missing an opportunity, offered me one of his little red books.
“if you can read this without feeling a slave,” he remarked, “you're john d. himself in disguise.”
i bought his little red book and put it with the pamphlet of the freethinker, and the tract of the god-fearing man, and stepped out of that group, feeling no more servile than when i went in. and i said to myself:
“this, surely, is a curious place to be in.”
for i was now strangely interested in these men of the eddy.
“there are more gods preached here,” i said, “than ever were known on the acropolis.”
up the square a few paces i saw a covered wagon with a dense crowd around it. and in front of it upon a little platform which raised the speaker high above the heads of the audience stood a woman, speaking with shrill ardour. most of the hearers were men; and she was telling them with logic and authority that the progress of civilization waited upon the votes of women. the army of the world stood still until the rear rank of its women could be brought into line! morals languished, religion faded, industries were brutalized, home life destroyed! if only women had their rights the world would at once become a beautiful and charming place! oh, she was a powerful and earnest speaker; she made me desire above everything, at the first opportunity, to use my share of the power in this government to provide each woman with a vote. and just as i had reached this compliant stage there came a girl smiling and passing her little basket. the sheer art of it! so i dropped in my coin and took the little leaflet she gave me and put it side by side with the other literature of my accumulating library.
and so i came away from those hot little groups with their perspiring orators, and felt again the charm of the tall buildings and the wide sunny square, and the park with down-at-heels warming his ragged shanks, and the great city clanging heedlessly by. how serious they all were there in their eddies! is there no god? will woman suffrage or socialism cure all the evils of this mad world which, ill as it is, we would not be without? is a belief for forty years in the complete wisdom of the book the final solution? why do not all of the seeking and suffering thousands flowing by in twenty-third street stop here in the eddies to seek the solution of their woes, the response to their hot desires?
so i came home to the country, thinking of what i had seen and heard, asking myself, “what is the truth, after all? what is real?”
and i was unaccountably glad to be at home again. as i came down the hill through the town road the valley had a quiet welcome for me, and the trees i know best, and the pleasant fields of corn and tobacco, and the meadows ripe with hay. i know of nothing more comforting to the questioning spirit than the sight of distant hills....
i found that bill had begun the hay cutting. i saw him in the lower field as i came by in the road. there he was, stationed high on the load, and john, the pole, was pitching on. when he saw me he lifted one arm high in the air and waved his hand—and i in return gave him the sign of the free fields.
“harriet,” i said, “it seems to me i was never so glad before to get home.”
“it's what you always say,” she remarked placidly.
“this time it's true!” and i put the pamphlets i had accumulated in the city eddies upon the pile of documents which i fully intend to read but rarely get to.
the heavenly comfort of an old shirt! the joy of an old hat!
as i walked down quickly into the field with my pitchfork on my shoulder to help bill with the hay, i was startled to see, hanging upon a peach tree at the corner of the orchard, a complete suit of black clothes. near it, with the arms waving gently in the breeze, was a white shirt and a black tie, and at the foot of the tree a respectable black hat. it was as though the peach tree had suddenly, on that bright day, gone into mourning.
i laughed to myself.
“bill,” i said, “what does this mean?”
bill is a stout jolly chap with cheeks that look, after half a day's haying, like raw beef-steaks. he paused on his load, smiling broadly, his straw hat set like a halo on the back of his head.
“expected a funeral,” he said cheerfully.
bill is the undertaker's assistant, and is always on call in cases of emergency.
“what happened, bill?”
“they thought they'd bury 'im this afternoon, but they took an' kep' 'im over till to-morrow.”
“but you came prepared.”
“yas, no time to go home in hayin'. the pump fer me, and the black togs.”
bill calls the first rakings of the hay “tumbles,” and the scattered re-rakings, which he despises, he calls “scratchings.” i took one side of the load and john, the pole, the other and we put on great forkfuls from the tumbles which bill placed skilfully at the corners and sides of the load, using the scratchings for the centre.
john, the pole, watched the load from below. “tank he too big here,” he would say, or, “tank you put more there”; but bill told mostly by the feel of the load under his feet or by the “squareness of his eye.” john, the pole, is a big, powerful fellow, and after smoothing down the load with his fork he does not bother to rake up the combings, but gathering a bunch of loose hay with his fork, he pushes it by main strength, and very quickly, around the load, and running his fork through the heap, throws it upon the mountain-high load in a twinkling—an admirable, deft performance.
hay-making is a really beautiful process: the clicking mower cutting its clean, wide swath, a man stepping after, where the hay is very heavy, to throw the windrow back a little. then, after lying to wilt and dry in the burning sun—all full of good odours—the horse-rake draws it neatly into wide billows, and after that, john, the pole, and i roll the billows into tumbles. or, if the hay is slow in drying, as it was not this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. then the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and bill on the load, and john and i pitching on; and the talk and badinage that goes on, the excitement over disturbed field mice, the discussion of the best methods of killing woodchucks, tales of marvellous exploits of loaders and stackers, thrilling incidents of the wet year of '98 when two men and one team saved four acres of hay by working all night—“with lanterns, i jing”—much talk of how she goes on, “she” being the hay, and no end of observations upon the character, accomplishments, faults, and excesses of the sedate old horses waiting comfortably out in front, half hidden by the mountain of hay above them and nibbling at the tumbles as they go by.
then the proud moment when bill the driver, with legs apart, almost pushing on the reins, drives his horses up the hill.
“go it, dick. let 'er out, daisy. stiddy, ol' boy. whoa, there. ease down now. hey, there, john, block the wheel—block the wheel i tell ye. ah-h now, jes' breathe a bit. i jing, it's hot.”
and then the barn, the cavernous dark doors, the hoofs of the horses thundering on the floor, the smell of cattle from below, the pigeons in the loft whirring startled from their perches. then the hot, scented, dusty “pitching off” and “mowing in”—a fine process, an honest process: men sweating for what they get.
as i came in from the field that night the sun was low in the hills, and a faint breeze had begun to blow, sweetly cool after the burning heat of the day. and i felt again that curious deep sense i have so often here in the country, of the soundness and reality of the plain things of life.
