Great Possessions | Page 9

the cow a true pattern of solicitous motherhood, the calf a true pattern of youth, dashing about upon uncertain legs.
"Takin' the air, David?"
I amuse Horace. Horace is an important man in this community. He has big, solid barns, and money in the bank, and a reputation for hardheadedness. He is also known as a "driver"; and has had sore trouble with a favourite son. He believes in "goin' it slow" and "playin' safe," and he is convinced that "ye can't change human nature."
His question came to me with a kind of shock. I imagined with a vividness impossible to describe what Horace would think if I answered him squarely and honestly, if I were to say:
"I've been down in the marshes following my nose--enjoying the thorn apples and the wild geraniums, talking with a woodpecker and reporting the morning news of the woods for an imaginary newspaper."
I was hungry, and in a mood to smile at myself anyway (good-humouredly and forgivingly as we always smile at ourselves!) before I met Horace, and the flashing vision I had of Horace's dry, superior smile finished me. Was there really anything in this world but cows and calves, and great solid barns, and oatcrops, and cash in the bank?
"Been in the brook?" asked Horace, observing my wet legs.
Talk about the courage to face cannon and Cossacks! It is nothing to the courage required to speak aloud in broad daylight of the finest things we have in us! I was not equal to it.
"Oh, I've been down for a tramp in the marsh," I said, trying to put him off.
But Horace is a Yankee of the Yankees and loves nothing better than to chase his friends into corners with questions, and leave them ultimately with the impression that they are somehow less sound, sensible, practical, than he is and he usually proves it, not because he is right, but because he is sure, and in a world of shadowy halt-beliefs and half-believers he is without doubts.
"What ye find down there?" asked Horace.
"Oh, I was just looking around to see how the spring was coming on."
"Hm-m," said Horace, eloquently, and when I did not reply, he continued, "Often git out in the morning as early as this?"
"Yes," I said, "often."
"And do you find things any different now from what they would be later in the day?"
At this the humour of the whole situation dawned on me and I began to revive. When things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can't laugh, we do either one of two things: we lie or we die. But if we can laugh, we can fight! And be honest!
"Horace," I said, "I know what you are thinking about."
Horace's face remained perfectly impassive, but there was a glint of curiosity in his eye.
"You've been thinking I've been wasting my time beating around down there in the swamp just to look at things and smell of things--which you wouldn't do. You think I'm a kind of impractical dreamer, now, don't you, Horace? I'll warrant you've told your wife just that more than once. Come, now!"
I think I made a rather shrewd hit, for Horace looked uncomfortable and a little foolish.
"Come now, honest!" I laughed and looked him in the eye.
"Waal, now, ye see--"
"Of course you do, and I don't mind it in the least."
A little dry gleam of humour came in his eye.
"Ain't ye?"
It's a fine thing to have it straight out with a friend.
"No," I said, "I'm the practical man and you're the dreamer. I've rarely known in all my life, Horace, such a confirmed dreamer as you are, nor a more impractical one."
Horace laughed.
"How do ye make that out?"
With this my spirit returned to me and I countered with a question as good as his. It is as valuable in argument as in war to secure the offensive.
"Horace, what are you working for, anyhow?"
This is always a devastating shot. Ninety-nine out of every hundred human beings are desperately at work grubbing, sweating, worrying, thinking, sorrowing, enjoying, without in the least knowing why.
"Why, to make a living--same as you," said Horace.
"Oh, come now, if I were to spread the report in town that a poor neighbour of mine, that's you, Horace, was just making his living, that he himself had told me so, what would you say? Horace, what are you working for? It's something more than a mere living."
"Waal, now, I'll tell ye, if ye want it straight, I'm layin' aside a little something for a rainy day."
"A little something!" this in the exact inflection of irony by which here in the country we express our opinion that a friend has really a good deal more laid aside than anybody knows about. Horace smiled also in the exact manner of one so complimented.
"Horace, what are you going to do with that