In the Midst of Alarms

Richard’s idea of the correct spirit in a reporter was exemplified by an old broken-down, out-of-work morning newspaper man, who had not long before committed suicide at an hour in the day too late for the evening papers to get the sensational item. He had sent in to the paper for which he formerly worked a full account of the fatality, accurately headed and sub-headed; and, in his note to the city editor, he told why he had chosen the hour of 7 P.M. as the time for his departure from an unappreciative world.

“Ah, well,” said Yates under his breath, and suddenly pulling himself together, “I mustn’t think of New York if I intend to stay here for a couple of weeks. I’ll be city-sick the first thing I know, and then I’ll make a break for the metropolis. This will never do. The air here is enchanting, it fills a man with new life. This is the spot for me, and I’ll stick to it till I’m right again. Hang New York! But I mustn’t think of Broadway or I’m done for.”

He came to the spot in the road where he could see the white side of the tent under the dark trees, and climbed up on the rail fence, sitting there for a few moments. The occasional call of a quail from a neighboring field was the only sound that broke the intense stillness. The warm smell of spring was in the air. The buds had but recently broken, and the woods, intensely green, had a look of newness and freshness that was comforting to the eye and grateful to the other senses. The world seemed to be but lately made. The young man breathed deeply of the vivifying air, and said: “No, there’s nothing the matter with this place, Dick. New York’s a fool to it.” Then, with a sigh, he added: “If I can stand it for two weeks. I wonder how the boys are getting on without me.”

In spite of himself his thoughts kept drifting back to the great city, although he told himself that it wouldn’t do. He gazed at the peaceful, spreading landscape, but his eyes were vacant and he saw nothing. The roar of the streets was in his ears. Suddenly his reverie was broken by a voice from the forest.

“I say, Yates, where’s the bread?”

Yates looked quickly around, somewhat startled, and saw the professor coming toward him.

“The bread? I forgot all about it. No; I didn’t either. They were baking—that was it. I am to go for it later in the day. What loot did you rake in, professor?”

“Vegetables mostly.”

“That’s all right. Have a good dinner?”

“Excellent.”

“So did I. Renny, when you interrupted me, I was just counting the farmhouses in sight. What do you say to boarding round among them? You are a schoolmaster, and ought to know all about it. Isn’t education in this country encouraged by paying the teacher as little as possible, and letting him take it out in eating his way from one house to another? Ever board around, Renny?”

“Never. If the custom once existed in Canada, it is out of date now.”

“That’s a pity. I hate to face my own cooking, Renmark. We become less brave as we grow older. By the way, how is old man Bartlett? As well as could be expected?”

“He seemed much as usual. Mrs. Bartlett has sent out two chairs to the tent; she fears we will get rheumatism if we sit on the ground.”

“She is a kind woman, Renny, and a thoughtful. And that reminds me: I have a hammock somewhere among my belongings. I will swing it up. Chairs are comfortable, but a hammock is luxury.”

Yates slid down from the fence top, and together the two men walked to the tent. The hammock was unfurled and slung between two trees. Yates tested it cautiously, and finally trusted himself to its restful folds of network. He was swaying indolently several feet from the ground when he said to Renmark:

“I call this paradise—paradise regained; but it will be paradise lost next month. Now, professor, I am ready to do the cooking, but I have a fancy for doing it by proxy. The general directs, and the useful prosaic man executes. Where are your vegetables, Renny? Potatoes and carrots, eh? Very good. Now, you may wash them, Renny; but first you must bring some water from the spring.”

The professor was a patient man, and he obeyed. Yates continued to swing in the hammock alternating directions with rhapsodies on the beauties of the day and the stillness of the woods. Renmark said but little, and attended strictly to the business in hand. The vegetables finished, he took a book from his valise, tilted a chair back against a tree, and began to read.

“I’m depending upon you for the bread,” he said to the drowsy man in the hammock.

“Right you are, Renny. Your confidence is not misplaced. I shall presently journey down into the realms of civilization, and fill the long-felt want. I shall go to the Howards by way of the Bartlett homestead, but I warn you that if there is a meal on, at either place, you will not have me here to test your first efforts at cooking. So you may have to wait until breakfast for my opinion.”

Yates extricated himself slowly and reluctantly from the hammock, and looked regretfully at it when he stood once more on the ground.

“This mad struggle for bread, professor, is the curse of life here below. It is what we are all after. If it were not for the necessity of bread and clothing, what a good time a fellow might have. Well, my blessing, Renny. Good-by.”

Yates strolled slowly through the woods, until he came to the beginning of a lane which led to the Bartlett homestead. He saw the farmer and his son at work in the back fields. From between the distant house and barn there arose, straight up into the still air, a blue column of smoke, which, reaching a certain height, spread out like a thin, hazy cloud above the dwelling. At first Yates thought that some of the outhouses were on fire, and he quickened his pace to a run; but a moment’s reflection showed him that the column was plainly visible to the workers in the fields, and that if anything were wrong they would not continue placidly at their labor. When he had walked the long length of the lane, and had safely rounded the corner of the barn, he saw, in the open space between that building and the house, a huge camp fire blazing. From a pole, upheld by two crotched supports, hung a big iron kettle over the flames. The caldron was full nearly to the brim, and the steam was already beginning to rise from its surface, although the fire had evidently been but recently kindled. The smoke was not now so voluminous, but Kitty Bartlett stood there with a big-brimmed straw hat in her hands, fanning it away from her face, while the hat at the same time protected her rosy countenance from the fire. She plainly was not prepared to receive visitors, and she started when the young man addressed her, flushing still more deeply, apparently annoyed at his unwelcome appearance.

“Good-afternoon,” he said cordially. “Preparing for washing? I thought Monday was washing day.”

“It is.”

“Then I have not been misinformed. And you are not preparing for washing?”

“We are.”

Yates laughed so heartily that Kitty, in spite of herself, had to permit a smile to brighten her own features. She always found it difficult remain solemn for any length of time.

“This is obviously a conundrum,” said Yates, ticking off the items on his four fingers. “First, Monday is washing day. Second, this is not Monday. Third, neither is to-morrow. Fourth, we are preparing for washing. I give it up, Miss Bartlett. Please tell me the answer.”

“The answer is that I am making soap; soft soap, if you know what that is.”

“Practically, I don’t know what it is; but I have heard the term used in a political connection. In the States we say that if a man is very diplomatic he uses soft soap, so I suppose it has lubricating qualities. Sam Slick used the term ‘soft sawder’ in the same way; but what sawder is, soft or hard, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“I thought you knew everything, Mr. Yates.”

“Me? Bless you, no. I’m a humble gleaner in the field of knowledge. That’s why I brought a Toronto professor with me. I want to learn something. Won’t you teach me how to make soap?”

“I’m very busy just now. When I said that we were preparing for washing, I should perhaps have told you there was something else we are not prepared for to-day.”

“What is that?”

“A visitor.”

“Oh, I say, Miss Bartlett, you are a little hard on me. I’m not a visitor. I’m a friend of the family. I want to help. You will find me a most diligent student. Won’t you give me a chance?”

“All the hard work’s done. But perhaps you knew that before you came.”

Yates looked at her reproachfully, and sighed deeply.

“That’s what it is to be a misunderstood man. So you think, among other bad qualities, I have the habit of shirking work? Let me tell you, Miss Bartlett, that the reason I am here is because I have worked too hard. Now, confess that you are sorry for what you said—trampling on an already downtrodden man.”

Kitty laughed merrily at this, and Yates laughed also, for his sense of comradeship was strong.

“You don’t look as if you had ever worked in your life; I don’t believe you know what work is.”

“But there are different kinds of labor. Don’t you call writing work?”

“No.”

“That’s just where you’re mistaken. It is, and hard work, too. I’ll tell you about the newspaper business if you’ll tell me about soap making. Fair exchange. I wish you would take me as a pupil, Miss Bartlett; you would find me quick at picking up things.”

“Well, then, pick up that pail and draw a pailful of water.”

“I’ll do it,” cried Yates sternly; “I’ll do it, though it blast me.”

Yates picked up the wooden pail, painted blue on the outside, with a red stripe near the top for ornament, and cream-colored inside. It was called a “patent pail” in those days, as it was a comparatively recent innovation, being cheaper, lighter, and stronger than the tin pail which it was rapidly replacing. At the well was a stout pole, pinned through the center to the upright support on which it swung, like the walking-beam of an engine. The thick end, which rested on the ground, was loaded with heavy stones; while from the thin end, high in the air, there dangled over the mouth of the well a slim pole with a hook. This hook was ingeniously furnished with a spring of hickory, which snapped when the handle of the pail was placed on the hook, and prevented the “patent” utensil from slipping off when it was lowered to the surface of the water. Yates speedily recognized the usefulness of this contrivance, for he found that the filling of a wooden pail in a deep well was not the simple affair it looked. The bucket bobbed about on the surface of the water. Once he forgot the necessity of keeping a stout grip on the pole, and the next instant the pail came up to the sunlight with a suddenness that was terrifying. Only an equally sudden backward jump on Yates’ part saved his head. Miss Bartlett was pleased to look upon this incident as funny. Yates was so startled by the unexpected revolt of the pail that his native courtesy did not get a chance to prevent Kitty from drawing up the water herself. She lowered the vessel, pulling down the pole in a hand-over-hand manner that the young man thought decidedly fetching, and then she gave an almost imperceptible twist to the arrangement that resulted in instant success. The next thing Yates knew the full pail was resting on the well curb, and the hickory spring had given the click that released the handle.

“There,” said Kitty, suppressing her merriment, “that’s how it’s done.”

“I see the result, Miss Bartlett; but I’m not sure I can do the trick. These things are not so simple as they seem. What is the next step?”

“Pour the water into the leach.”

“Into the what?”

“Into the leach, I said. Where else?”

“Oh, I’m up a tree again. I see I don’t even know the A B C of this business. In the old days the leech was a physician. You don’t mean I’m to drown a doctor?”

“This is the leach,” said Kitty, pointing to a large, yellowish, upright wooden cylinder, which rested on some slanting boards, down the surface of which ran a brownish liquid that dripped into a trough.

As Yates stood on a bench with the pail in his hand he saw that the cylinder was filled nearly to the top with sodden wood ashes. He poured in the water, and it sank quickly out of sight.

“So this is part of the soap-making equipment?” he said, stepping down; “I thought the iron kettle over the fire was the whole factory. Tell me about the leach.”

“That is where the hard work of soap making comes in,” said Kitty, stirring the contents of the iron kettle with a long stick. “Keeping the leach supplied with water at first is no fun, for then the ashes are dry. If you put in five more pails of water, I will tell you about it.”

“Right!” cried Yates, pleased to see that the girl’s evident objection to his presence at first was fast disappearing. “Now you’ll understand how energetic I am. I’m a handy man about a place.”

When he had completed his task, she was still stirring the thickening liquid in the caldron, guarding her face from the fire with her big straw hat. Her clustering, tangled fair hair was down about her shoulders; and Yates, as he put the pail in its place, when it had been emptied the fifth time, thought she formed a very pretty picture standing there by the fire, even if she were making soft soap.

“The wicked genii has finished the task set him by the fairy princess. Now for the reward. I want all the particulars about the leach. In the first place, where do you get this huge wooden cylinder that I have, without apparent effect, been pouring water into? Is it manufactured or natural?”

“Both. It is a section of the buttonwood tree.”

“Buttonwood? I don’t think I ever heard of that. I know the beech and the maple, and some kinds of oak, but there my wood lore ends. Why the buttonwood?”

“The buttonwood happens to be exactly suited to the purpose. It is a tree that is very fine to look at. It seems all right, but it generally isn’t. It is hollow or rotten within, and, even when sound, the timber made from it is of little value, as it doesn’t last. Yet you can’t tell until you begin to chop whether it is of any use or not.” Kitty shot a quick glance at the young man, who was sitting on a log watching her.

“Go on, Miss Bartlett; I see what you mean. There are men like the buttonwood tree. The woods are full of them. I’ve met lots of that kind, fair to look upon, but hollow. Of course you don’t mean anything personal; for you must have seen my worth by the way I stuck to the water hauling. But go on.”

“Dear me, I never thought of such a thing; but a guilty conscience, they say–” said Kitty, with a giggle.

“Of course they say; but it’s wrong, like most other things they say. It’s the man with the guilty conscience who looks you straight in the eye. Now that the buttonwood is chopped down, what’s the next thing to be done?”

“It is sawn off at the proper length, square at one end and slanting at the other.”

“Why slanting?”

“Don’t you see, the foundation of plank on which it rests is inclined, so the end of the leach that is down must be slantingly cut, otherwise it would not stand perpendicularly. It would topple over in the first windstorm.”

“I see, I see. Then they haul it in and set it up?”

“Oh, dear no; not yet. They build a fire in it when it gets dry enough.”

“Really? I think I understand the comprehensive scheme, but I slip up on the details, as when I tried to submerge that wooden pail. What’s the fire for?”

“To burn out what remains of the soft inside wood, so as to leave only the hard outside shell. Then the charring of the inner surface is supposed to make the leach better—more water-tight, perhaps.”

“Quite so. Then it is hauled in and set up?”

“Yes; and gradually filled with ashes. When it is full, we pour the water in it, and catch the lye as it drips out. This is put in the caldron with grease, pigskins, and that sort of thing, and when it boils long enough, the result is soft soap.”

“And if you boil it too long, what is the result?”

“Hard soap, I suppose. I never boil it too long.”

The conversation was here interrupted by a hissing in the fire, caused by the tumultuous boiling over of the soap. Kitty hurriedly threw in a basin of cold lye, and stirred the mixture vigorously.

“You see,” she said reproachfully, “the result of keeping me talking nonsense to you. Now you will have to make up for it by bringing in some wood and putting more water into the leach.”

“With the utmost pleasure,” cried Yates, springing to his feet. “It is a delight to atone for a fault by obeying your commands.”

The girl laughed. “Buttonwood,” she said. Before Yates could think of anything to say in reply Mrs. Bartlett appeared at the back door.

“How is the soap getting on, Kitty?” she asked. “Why, Mr. Yates, are you here?”

“Am I here? I should say I was. Very much here. I’m the hired man. I’m the hewer of wood and the hauler of water, or, to speak more correctly, I’m the hauler of both. And, besides, I’ve been learning how to make soap, Mrs. Bartlett.”

“Well, it won’t hurt you to know how.”

“You bet it won’t. When I get back to New York, the first thing I shall do will be to chop down a buttonwood tree in the park, if I can find one, and set up a leach for myself. Lye comes useful in running a paper.”

Mrs. Bartlett’s eyes twinkled, for, although she did not quite understand his nonsense, she knew it was nonsense, and she had a liking for frivolous persons, her own husband being so somber-minded.

“Tea is ready,” she said. “Of course you will stay, Mr. Yates.”

“Really, Mrs. Bartlett, I cannot conscientiously do so. I haven’t earned a meal since the last one. No; my conscience won’t let me accept, but thank you all the same.”

“Nonsense; my conscience won’t let you go away hungry. If nobody were to eat but those who earn their victuals, there would be more starving people in the world than there are. Of course you’ll stay.”

“Now, that’s what I like, Mrs. Bartlett. I like to have a chance of refusing an invitation I yearn for, and then be forced to accept. That’s true hospitality.” Then in a whisper he added to Kitty; “If you dare to say ‘buttonwood,’ Miss Bartlett, you and I will quarrel.”

But Kitty said nothing, now that her mother had appeared on the scene, but industriously stirred the contents of the iron kettle.

“Kitty,” said the mother, “you call the men to supper.”

“I can’t leave this,” said Kitty, flushing; “it will boil over. You call, mother.”

So Mrs. Bartlett held her open palms on each side of her mouth, and gave the long wailing cry, which was faintly answered from the fields, and Yates, who knew a thing or two, noted with secret satisfaction that Kitty had refused doubtless because he was there.

CHAPTER VIII

“I tell you what it is, Renny,” said Yates, a few days after the soap episode, as he swung in his hammock at the camp, “I’m learning something new every day.”

“Not really?” asked the professor in surprise.

“Yes, really. I knew it would astonish you. My chief pleasure in life, professor, is the surprising of you. I sometimes wonder why it delights me; it is so easily done.”

“Never mind about that. What have you been learning?”

“Wisdom, my boy; wisdom in solid chunks. In the first place, I am learning to admire the resourcefulness of these people around us. Practically, they make everything they need. They are the most self-helping people that I was ever thrown among. I look upon theirs as the ideal life.”

“I think you said something like that when we first came here.”

“I said that, you ass, about camping out. I am talking now about farm life. Farmers eliminate the middleman pretty effectually, and that in itself is going a long way toward complete happiness. Take the making of soap, that I told you about; there you have it, cheap and good. When you’ve made it, you know what is in it, and I’ll be hanged if you do when you pay a big price for it in New York. Here they make pretty nearly everything they need, except the wagon and the crockery; and I’m not sure but they made them a few years back. Now, when a man with a good sharp ax and a jack-knife can do anything from building his house to whittling out a chair, he’s the most independent man on earth. Nobody lives better than these people do. Everything is fresh, sweet, and good. Perhaps the country air helps; but it seems to me I never tasted such meals as Mrs. Bartlett, for instance, gets up. They buy nothing at the stores except the tea, and I confess I prefer milk myself. My tastes were always simple.”

“And what is the deduction?”

“Why, that this is the proper way to live. Old Hiram has an anvil and an amateur forge. He can tinker up almost anything, and that eliminates the blacksmith. Howard has a bench, saws, hammers, and other tools, and that eliminates the carpenter. The women eliminate the baker, the soap boiler, and a lot of other parasites. Now, when you have eliminated all the middlemen, then comes independence, and consequently complete happiness. You can’t keep happiness away with a shotgun then.”

“But what is to become of the blacksmith, the carpenter, and all the rest?”

“Let them take up land and be happy too; there’s plenty of land. The land is waiting for them. Then look how the master is eliminated. That’s the most beautiful riddance of all. Even the carpenter and blacksmith usually have to work under a boss; and if not, they have to depend on the men who employ them. The farmer has to please nobody but himself. That adds to his independence. That’s why old Hiram is ready to fight the first comer on the slightest provocation. He doesn’t care whom he offends, so long as it isn’t his wife. These people know how to make what they want, and what they can’t make they do without. That’s the way to form a great nation. You raise, in this way, a self-sustaining, resolute, unconquerable people. The reason the North conquered the South was because we drew our armies mostly from the self-reliant farming class, while we had to fight a people accustomed for generations to having things done for them.”

“Why don’t you buy a farm, Yates?”

“Several reasons. I am spoiled for the life here. I am like the drunkard who admires a temperate life, yet can’t pass a ginshop. The city virus is in my blood. And then, perhaps, after all, I am not quite satisfied with the tendency of farm life; it is unfortunately in a transition state. It is at the frame-house stage, and will soon blossom into the red-brick stage. The log-house era is what I yearn for. Then everything a person needed was made on the farm. When the brick-house era sets in, the middleman will be rampant. I saw the other day at the Howards’ a set of ancient stones that interested me as much as an Assyrian marble would interest you. They were old, home-made millstones, and they have not been used since the frame house was built. The grist mill at the village put them out of date. And just here, notice the subtlety of the crafty middleman. The farmer takes his grist to the mill, and the miller does not charge him cash for grinding it. He takes toll out of the bags, and the farmer has a vague idea that he gets his grinding for almost nothing. The old way was the best, Renny, my boy. The farmer’s son won’t be as happy in the brick house which the mason will build for him as his grandfather was in the log house he built for himself. And fools call this change the advance of civilization.”

“There is something to be said for the old order of things,” admitted Renmark. “If a person could unite the advantages of what we call civilization with the advantages of a pastoral life, he would inaugurate a condition of things that would be truly idyllic.”

“That’s so, Renmark, that’s so!” cried Yates enthusiastically. “A brownstone mansion on Fifth Avenue, and a log hut on the shores of Lake Superior! That would suit me down to the ground. Spend half the year in each place.”

“Yes,” said the professor meditatively; “a log hut on the rocks and under the trees, with the lake in front, would be very nice if the hut had a good library attached.”

“And a daily paper. Don’t forget the press.”

“No. I draw the line there. The daily paper would mean the daily steamer or the daily train. The one would frighten away the fish, and the other would disturb the stillness with its whistle.”

Yates sighed. “I forgot about the drawbacks,” he said. “That’s the trouble with civilization. You can’t have the things you want without bringing in their trail so many things you don’t want. I shall have to give up the daily paper.”