uncle ed had his home in florida, but spent the summer working at hope farm. at the time i speak of we were hoeing corn at the top of our hill. we had just planted the apple orchard, and we both realized the long and weary years of toilsome waiting before there could be any fruit. it was a hot day, and at the end of the row we stopped to rest under the big cherry tree where the stone wall is broad and thick. it was a clear day, and far off across the rolling country to the east we could see the sparkle of the sun on some gilded-top building in new york. it gave one a curious feeling to stand in that shady retreat on $50 land in a lonely neighborhood, practically untouched by modern development, and glance across to the millions and the might crowded at the mouth of the hudson. most of us feel a sort of pride on viewing the evidence of wealth and power, even though we have no share in it, or even when we know it means blood money taken from our own lives. i felt something of this as i pointed it out to uncle ed, and told him how probably the overflow of that great city would some day make an acre of our orchard worth more than a farm in florida.
this did not seem to impress him greatly. he ran his eye over the glowing prospect and then slowly filled his pipe for a smoke. i am no friend of tobacco, but i confess that sometimes i enjoy seeing a man like uncle ed slowly fill his pipe. i feel that some sort of homely philosophy is sure to be smoked out.
“the trouble with you folks up in this country,” said uncle ed, “is that you work too hard. you get so that there is nothing in you but work and save. and for what? how many of you ever get the benefit of your own work? down where i live we don’t exist for the mere sake of working. i have known the time when i got up determined to do a good day’s work cultivating. i got the horse all harnessed, only to find that my neighbor on the south had borrowed the cultivator, and i couldn’t do that. then i thought i’d hoe, but the boys lost the hoe in the brush and couldn’t find it. then there was the woodpile to be cut up, but my neighbor on the north had borrowed the ax.
“now up in this country if fate challenged a man like that he would start picking up stones and making a stone wall. here is one now that we are resting against. i’ll bet some old owner of this farm piled up this heap of stones because he was determined that the boys never should play or go fishing. it is now the most useless thing you have on your farm. if, instead of picking up stones and building this useless wall, that old-timer had quit when fate gave him the sign, taken a day off and let the boys go fishing or play ball, this farm would be worth far more than it is today. down in my country when the cultivator and the hoe and the ax all get away from us we accept it as a voice from some higher authority, and we drop everything and go fishing. after that i notice things straighten out and work goes right. you fellows work too hard, and don’t know it. but this won’t buy the woman a dress—we must hoe this corn out.”
the rows ran to the south, and as we hoed on i could see, far away, that bright sparkle on the gilding of the big city. and i answered with the old familiar argument:
“you have just told in a few words why there are more savings of the poor and middle-class people in that big city yonder than there are in the entire state of florida.” that was 16 years ago and the statement was probably true at the time. florida has gained since then.
“up in this country we believe that the lord gives every man of decent mind and reasonable body a chance to provide for himself and family before he is 45. if he doesn’t do it by that time, he isn’t likely to do it at all. we think that there are three ways of getting money. you can earn it through labor, steal it, or have it given to you. for most of us there is only one way—that is to dig it out by the hardest work, and then practice self-denial in order to hold it. up in this country the men who quit and go fishing when conditions turn against them, spend their declining years without any bait. that money off there where you see that sparkle was produced by men who did not go fishing when conditions turned against them.”
as i look back upon it now that seems pretty cheap talk, but it was the way we looked at it in those days.
“i know,” said uncle ed, “but how much better off are they when you sum it all up? i claim that the man who goes fishing gets something that the man who built that stone wall never knew. who piled up all that money in the big city? some of mine is there. the interest i have paid on my mortgage has come into one of these big buildings for investment. the profit on many a box of oranges i shipped before the freeze never got away from new york. it stuck there and you can’t get it out. and that’s just what i mean. you fellows work your fingers stiff and make a little money, and then you put it into some bank or big company or into stocks or bonds. in the end it all gets away from you and runs down hill to that big city. the hired man took $25 to the county fair. ten dollars of it went for beer and rum. the local saloonkeeper passed the $10 on to the wholesaler, he to the brewer and he sent part of it to germany and the rest to wall street. the other $15 mostly went in chance games or petty gambling. he lost $5 betting that he could find the little red ball under the hat. the man who won his $5 lost it that night playing poker. the gambler who won it lost it a few nights later in a gambling house. the gambling house man bought bogus oil and mining stocks and lost it that way. the oil stock man had sense enough to salt it down in respectable securities, and there it is now under that bright sparkle in the big city. you and the rest of you do pretty much the same. this man who built your stone wall did it. the money he made was not invested here. if it had been you never could have bought this farm. it is off there under that bright sparkle—and the boys and girls run after it. you fellows work too hard!”
i undertook to come back with that text about the man who provideth not for his family—but i never was good at remembering texts. that is probably because i do not study them as i ought to. but at any rate i undertook to argue that it is a man’s first duty to provide for his family and also for his own “rainy day.” “the night cometh, when no man can work.”
“down where i live,” said uncle ed, “we don’t have such rainy days as you do up here. life is simple and straight and old people are cared for. we want them to live with us—we are not waiting for them to pass off and leave their money. off in that big city where your money is turning over and over, thousands of human lives get under it and are crushed out of all shape. down there under that sparkle only the poor know what neighbors are. many a man lives his life in some tenement or apartment house never knowing or caring what goes on in the room on the other side of the wall. there may be joy or sorrow, death or life, virtue or crime. he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care, because this never-ending grind of work has changed sympathy into selfishness. and in the end that is what all those dollars which you folks dump into the big city come to. if the habit is so strong that you’ve got to work and try to catch up with the man who has a little more than you have, why not invest your money at home and in the farm? those fellows off under that sparkle will come chasing after your money if you invest it here, and you would be boss instead of servant! am i right?”
that was 16 years ago, and many things have happened since then. uncle ed has passed away—after many troubles and misfortunes. the world has been shaken up by the war and by great discoveries, so that we hardly know it. yet there is a brighter sparkle than ever on the gilded roofs of the big city—greater wealth and more blinding poverty crouching beneath it. the hill where we hoed corn is now covered with big apple trees. where then bob and jerry toiled slowly along with half a ton of fruit the truck now flashes down the hard, smooth road with two tons. but sitting on the old stone wall of a sunday afternoon in late august i look across the valley and wonder how much there really is in uncle ed’s philosophy after all. what do you think?
