Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist

by Stephen Hines

  As I opened the door a couple of the boys put their feet into the meshes of the woven wire fence and climbed over it as tho it had been a stairs, altho the gate was only a few steps from them. Evidently that was the way they had entered the dooryard.

  “Boys what are you doing?” I asked. “Oh! Just chasing butterflies,” answered one, while another added as tho that excused everything, “Our teacher is just down there,” indicating a place well within the fenced field.

  When we had taken stock of the damage done by the butterfly chasers, we found that the barbed wire fence had been broken down where they had entered the fields and the woven wire fence was badly stretched and sagged. Wire fencing is high these days and help impossible to get so that such raids are particularly annoying just now tho they are not, by any means, anything new.

  We are engaged just now in a mighty struggle to teach a certain part of the people of the world a respect for truth and for the rights and property of other people. Are we failing to teach these things at home as we should?

  We are told that the reason for the warped national conscience of the German nation is, that the people have been trained from infancy for the things which they have been doing in this war, taught in such a manner that they could be brought to do the awful things which they have done. The results show with startling vividness the effects of childhood impressions and the training of youth.

  If in one generation a gentle, kind-hearted people can be changed into fiends by a system of teaching, what might be accomplished if children were as carefully trained in the opposite direction. Truly, “As the twig is bent, the tree inclines.”

  Opportunity

  November 5, 1918

  “Grasp opportunity by the forelock, for it is bald behind,” says the old proverb. In other words, we must be ready to meet and take advantage of opportunities as they come, or we will lose the chance. We cannot have any hold on them once they have passed by. Nor is time and endeavor spent in preparing ourselves ever wasted, for if we are ready, opportunity is sure to come.

  President Wilson is one of the finest examples of a man who was prepared for the opportunity that came to him. In studying his life one comes to feel that he must have decided, while yet a boy, to become President and carefully prepared himself for it, so exactly did his life, up to the time, fit him for the position.

  Virtually all his life, Wilson was a student of government. He was nearly 30 when his academic training was ended, then a two years’ study of law added a practicable equipment. But all these years of hard study were only a beginning for the still more arduous study he did in preparation for the lectures he gave and the magazine articles and books he wrote, mostly on subjects relating to history and legislation.

  Before there was any idea of making him President, before he could have seen any likelihood of such a thing, he knew congress and congressional procedure thoroly, far better than did many experienced congressmen.

  Wilson’s experience as president of Princeton university gave him a training in the handling of men and also in fighting for democratic institutions and so in this great crisis of American history, the opportunity found the man prepared, trained and waiting to take his high place in the world, a position where he is called upon to put to use all the knowledge and skill he acquired in all those long years of study and training.

  There are other great persons of whom the same is true. In fact no one can become great who is not ready to take the opportunity when it comes, nor indeed succeed in smaller matters and whatever we prepare ourselves to do or become, the opportunity will come to us to do or become that thing.

  Even tho we never become one of the great persons of the world, the chance is sure to come to us to use whatever knowledge we acquire.

  I knew a woman who denied herself in other things in order that she might pay for French lessons. There seemed no chance that it would ever be an advantage to her except as a means of culture, but she now has a good position at a large salary which she would have been unable to fill but for her knowledge of French.

  There is unfortunately a reverse side to this picture I have drawn, of efforts crowned by success—just as achievements are made possible by a careful preparation, a lack of effort to reach forward and beyond our present position works inversely, and again examples are too numerous to mention.

  A hired man on a farm who always needs a boss; who is unable mentally and by disposition to work unless his employer is present and leading; who never fits himself, by being responsible and trustworthy, for the responsibility of owning and running his own farm, will always be a hired man either on a farm or elsewhere.

  The tenant farmer who is not preparing himself for being an owner by putting himself mentally in an owner’s place, getting his point of view and realizing his difficulties, is the tenant farmer who is always having trouble with his landlord and almost never comes to own his own farm. Realizing the difficulties and solving the problems of the next step up seem to lead inevitably to taking that step.

  If we do a little less than is required by the position we now fill, whether in our own business or working for someone else; if we do not learn something of the work of the person higher up, we are never ready to advance and then we say, “I had a good chance if I had only known how, and so forth.”

  If we spend on our living every cent of our present income, we are not ready to take that opportunity which requires a little capital and then we say, “That was a good chance if I could only have raised the money.”

  There is also a touch of humor to be found in the fact that what we prepare for comes to us, altho it is rather pitiful. Humor and pathos are very close “kin.”

  When the influenza came to our town, Mrs. C called a friend and tried to engage her to come and nurse her thru the illness.

  “Have you the influenza?” asked the friend.

  “Oh, no!” replied Mrs. C. “None of us has it yet, but I’m all ready for it. I have my bed all clean and ready to crawl into as soon as I feel ill. Everything is ready but a nurse and I want you to come and take care of me.”

  In a very few days Mrs. C was in bed with an attack of influenza. She had prepared for the visit and she could say with the psalmist: “The thing that I feared has come upon me.”

  San Marino Is Small but Mighty

  December 5, 1918

  “In order to get my passports for Europe, I had to swear allegiance to the allies, including the King of Siam and the republic of San Marino. Of course I love ’em all if they are fighting for us but it seemed rather queer to swear allegiance to that little four-by-nine country of San Marino,” says a letter which I recently received.

  Hidden away within the territory of Italy, completely surrounded by that country, is the smallest republic in the world. This little country, the republic of San Marino, is 9 miles long and contains 38 square miles.

  The capital of the country is built upon a mountain top which seems almost inaccessible, rising sheer from the plains of Romagna. There is a legend that this mountain was raised by the Titans in their anger when they tried to reach Jove and drive him from the throne of Heaven.

  The republic of San Marino has been free and independent for 1,600 years, while around it have rolled the strife and bloodshed of the wars of the world.

  The position of the country, far enough from the coast to be secure from invasion by sea, distant from the great Roman roads, up and down which armies traveled, the peaceful character of the inhabitants and the poverty of the country, were partly responsible for its being unmolested, but the principal cause of San Marino’s peaceful history, is internal and exists in its institutions and the character of its people.

  During all the years while other countries have been going thru the disrupting, violent process of dethroning tyrants and vindicating the rights of the common people, there were in San Marino no factions, no tyrants and the rights of the people were safe and respected. Here the people lived simply, changing their laws slowly as the changing t
imes required and always adopting those changes which best developed and conserved their liberties.

  It was in the middle of the Fourth century, during the days when Christians were persecuted, that two stone masons of Dalmatia, named Marino and Leo, crossed the Adriatic sea and came to Rimini to aid the Christian slaves who had been condemned to build the walls of that city. The lot of those who hewed the rocks from the mountains and transported them to the mouth of the river, was much the hardest and because their need of help was the greatest, Marino and Leo ascended the river and stopped before the two abruptly rising mountains. As they were experienced stone cutters, they were soon placed in charge of large numbers of slaves, whom they were able to help in many ways spiritually as well as physically.

  When the walls of the city of Rimini were finished, the two stone cutters retired each to the mountain top to live in peace and solitude. Marino hewed a bed from the rock and cultivated a little garden. The rock bed and site of the garden is still to be seen in the city. Some of the slaves escaped and followed their overseers to the mountains. A little Christian church was built on each mountain and here these simple people practiced their Christian faith undisturbed and the two colonies became an asylum for the weary and oppressed. Being poor and simple, their wants were provided for by the hewing and quarrying of stone, which is today the chief industry.

  A wealthy Roman woman who had been taught the Christian faith, by Marino, gave him the mountains which she owned, as absolute and perpetual property. Marino strove to found a free society upon the foundation of liberty, justice, simplicity, charity and love of peace and when he died he called his people together around him and bequeathed them his mountain, “free from every other man.” He begged his followers to be true to the faith and live in perfect accord as free men.

  The territory of the country was extended a little thru purchase and because of the warring times the city was fortified. The strong walls whose ruins still encircle the city show one reason why the little republic was left in peace.

  The government of the country today still holds the spirit of its founder. A council of 60 citizens is the governing body. These councilors are elected every three years and they choose, from their number every six months two captains regent who hold the executive power and preside at meetings of the council

  There are several co-operative institutions in San Marino, among which are a public bake house, a bank, a canteen and a grain magazine. Fine livestock is raised by the people and every family has its own vineyard.

  Actual criminals are not allowed to come and remain in the country but political refugees are given haven and many famous people have found refuge there.

  Marino taught his people that war, tho, a necessity in self-defense, was otherwise an unpardonable crime and so since its foundation until the present time, the country has never gone to war, but the people could not stay quietly at home while the war for the liberty of the world was raging and the young men of San Marino went into the Italian army and the country has maintained a hospital on the Italian front, for San Marino, tho the smallest of the goodly company, is one of the allies.

  The American Spirit

  December 20, 1918

  “The food administration now becomes a great machine of mercy destined to carry the American spirit into the homes and hearts of a great host of bewildered, confused human beings, hungry, discouraged, saddened, submerged by the wreckage resulting from the war. They have gone thru fire for us. The least we can do is to help them to their feet, to see that they are fed and clothed. Don’t let your community backslide! Play the game thru! America hates a quitter!”

  These ringing words were spoken by Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, president of Stanford University.

  As a nation we have made a great reputation, it now remains to live up to it. Just what is this American spirit that our overseas force of fighters and helpers have carried into Europe? It is a spirit of helpfulness and courage, of sympathy and sacrifice, of energy and of fair play.

  We have sent our fighting men to the aid of the wronged and helpless and food and clothing to the starving and destitute. Never before in history have the people of a whole nation denied themselves food that they might feed the hungry of other nations.

  I am sure that a great many persons felt a sort of flatness and staleness in life when the war ended. Altho they were glad and deeply thankful, there was an unpleasantness in going back to ordinary things, a letting down from the heights to which they had attained, a silence in place of the bugle call to duty, to which their spirits had become attuned.

  But here is a chance to exercise still further those qualities which, in spite of all the horrors, have made of the war a glorious thing by showing how the good still rises triumphant over the bad in the heart of humanity.

  The appeal of Dr. Wilbur comes most appropriately at this time for the American spirit as it has been displayed is really the spirit of Christmas or in other words the spirit of Christianity, a practicable example of loving and serving and giving.

  It is a wonderful thing for us to have accepted as our own such national ideals, but we cannot hold them as a nation unless we accept them for our own as individuals. So the responsibility rests upon each of us to keep our country true to the course it has taken and up to the high standard it has reached.

  * * *

  1. Talbot Mundy was an author of adventure stories.

  2. From the poem “The Iron Gate” by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

  3. From another poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Chambered Nautilus.”

  4. Newton D. Baker served as secretary of war from 1916 to 1921.

  5. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Herbert Hoover head of the Food Administration.

  6. In the Spanish American War, the Germans sought to intervene against U.S. interests.

  7. The Russian people were probably not “deceived” by false promises: internal conditions in Russia, namely revolution, made it necessary for them to sue for peace with Germany.

  8. Matthew 7:12.

  1919

  A Few Minutes with a Poet

  January 5, 1919

  Among my books of verse, there is an old poem that I could scarcely do without. It is “The Fool’s Prayer” by Edward Rowland Sill and every now and then I have been impelled, in deep humiliation of spirit, to pray the prayer made by that old-time jester of the king.

  Even tho one is not in the habit of making New Year’s resolutions, to be broken whenever the opportunity arises, still as the old year departs, like Lot’s wife, we cannot resist a backward glance. As we see in the retrospect, the things we have done that we ought not and the things we have left undone that we should have done, we have a hope that the coming year will show a better record.

  In my glance backward and hope for the future, one thing became plain to me—that I valued the love and appreciation of my friends more than ever before and that I would try to show my love for them; that I would be more careful of their feelings, more tactful and so endear myself to them.

  A few days later a friend and I went together to an afternoon gathering where refreshments were served and we came back to my friend’s home just as the evening meal was ready. The Man of The Place failed to meet me and so I stayed unexpectedly. My friend made apologies for the simple meal and I said that I preferred plain food to such as we had in the afternoon, which was the same as saying that her meal was plain and that the afternoon refreshments had been finer. I felt that I had said the wrong thing and in a desperate effort to make amends I praised the soup which had been served. Not being satisfied to let well enough alone, because of my embarrassment, I continued, “It is so easy to have delicious soups, one can make them of just any little things that are left.”

  And all the way home as I rode quietly beside The Man of The Place I kept praying “The Fool’s Prayer,”

  O Lord be merciful to me, a fool.

  We can afford to laugh at a little mistake such as that, however embarrassing it
may be. To laugh and forget is one of the saving graces, but only a little later I was guilty of another mistake, over which I cannot laugh.

  Mrs. G and I were in a group of women at a social affair, but having a little business to talk over, we stepped into another room where we were almost immediately followed by an acquaintance. We greeted her and then went on with our conversation, from which she was excluded. I forgot her presence and when I looked her way again she was gone. We had not been kind and, to make it worse, she was comparatively a stranger among us.

  In a few minutes every one was leaving, without my having had a chance to make amends in any way. I could not apologize without giving a point to the rudeness but I thought that I would be especially gracious to her when we met again so she would not feel that we made her an outsider. Now I learn that it will be months before I see her again. I know that she is very sensitive and that I must have hurt her. Again and from the bottom of my heart, I prayed “The Fool’s Prayer,”

  These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

  Go crushing blossoms without end;

  These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust

  Among the heart-strings of a friend.

  O Lord, be merciful to me, a fool.

  As we grow old enough to have a proper perspective, we see such things work out to their conclusion, or rather to a partial conclusion, for the effects go on and on endlessly. Very few of our misdeeds are with deliberate intent to do wrong. Our hearts are mostly in the right place but we seem to be weak in the head.

  ’Tis not by guilt the onward sweep

  Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;

  ’Tis by our follies that so long