I did not have the nerve to do any more selling that afternoon, though the day was long unfinished. At last I got back to the room in the Higgins farmhouse, walking all the way to calm my feelings, and I lay down on my bed. The sun was shining in through the windows. It was hot. It was too hot for comfort, but I just lay there with my feet on the bed, doing nothing. Mrs. Higgins thought I was sick. She came in and sat by me, seeing me so flushed, and asked me what was the matter. At last I told her the whole story. I had to tell somebody, so I confessed that I had tried and tried to be a star salesman, and my salesmanship did not work. Mrs. Higgins was very sympathetic. She went out and brought me in some grape juice, very cold, from her icebox. She consoled me, saying with a sigh, “It’s so hard to make a living, particularly in a foreign country. You poor boy!” I roused up to state firmly that it wasn’t because I was in a foreign country (for that sounded too much like I couldn’t make good, as Mr. Lively had said). “Any other would have the same difficulty in selling those awful books. . . .”
After Mrs. Higgins had left me, I began wondering what I would do next. One thing was plain to me, I was not going to sell any more Universal Education. Perhaps I might start out and walk to Canada, there to work in Mr. McCann’s boxmaking factory. I thought and thought, and nothing else came into my mind—except that man who had kicked me. And he was right, I thought. He too was probably working hard for a living, perhaps in one of those shoe factories I had seen in the neighboring town. When the whistle blew, hundreds of hands rushed out of the gate into the streets, a little pale, a little weary, all in a hurry to get something to eat and some coffee to drink, a little leisure and a little peace. No wonder he was angry at me for breaking in on that, trying to sell the unwanted article.
I grew tired of being in the house. I walked out through the flower garden and I came to the vegetable patch where Mr. Higgins was working. I watched him. It was a pleasure to put my mind on that. I took a hoe and did the way he did. He seemed surprised, but pleased, to have somebody there to talk to. After a couple of hours, he said, jokingly, “You ought to stay here and work for us!” I said, “Oh, I would be delighted.” And I worked beside him until it was time to stop. That was not until his wife called him in to supper. She invited me too. How good her supper seemed! I was tired and relaxed and hungry from my hoeing. There was so much to eat, a lot of vegetables from the garden, a lot of cold meat, a lot of tea, a lot of jam, and fresh butter and home-canned fruits. And almost all there was, we ate. I always thought that in eating I was an expert. That is, my stomach would always receive a lot without saying there is no more room, and also without making any complaint afterwards. But with Farmer Higgins in eating I could not compete. I never saw him hurrying in anything except that. For in eating he was very fast—a whole chunk of bread in the mouth, a whole potato, and before either was all gone a big piece of meat. After supper, I thanked them and went up to my room to read as usual. My mood of crushed despondency was almost played out.
Another half hour, and Mr. Higgins called me down again. He said he and Mrs. Higgins had talked it over, and he proposed that I stay there and help him on the farm during that summer. “Fine!” I shouted, “Fine!” (Oh, what a relief that was, not to go on selling Universal Education—no longer to express my courage and determination to succeed, by earning a kick!) There was no contract, but I was to work by the week as long as Farmer Higgins needed me. I was to have my room and board and three dollars besides, every Saturday.
It proved to be a wholly satisfactory arrangement. Life here for me was simple, sound, wholesome, and primitive. The typical Oriental is all of these—a view the West has yet to form of him, it seems, since as a stock character he is either a cruel and brutish heathen with horrid outlandish customs, or a subtle and crafty gentleman of inscrutable sophistications. In reality he is a troubled little child, at least in contact with the West, to which he is introduced straight from his own antique and outmoded culture. Really in the West the most salient virtue of the Confucian heritage (among its many faults) seems to have escaped notice, that virtue which strikes a peculiarly harmonious balance between being a wholesome animal and a dignified human, and which has grown up in the most persistently agricultural region of the world since remote ages. At any rate, I—as an Oriental, bewildered before Western “knowledge”—was well content now to be in the country again.
The Higgins farm was set amidst the stony Massachusetts hills. Here Farmer Higgins had come when he got married and here he had cleared off his fields as his ancestors before him who first wrested soil from the Redskins. The soil was fairly fertile, though rocky. Well, at least those bare rocks in the pasturelands were supposed to be a bad feature, but I think Mr. Higgins had an affection for them. They were an unavoidable part of nature, like winter snow and summer sun, like thundershower and willow shade, and they had their own beauty and tranquillity. Out of these acres and this landscape Farmer Higgins’ substance came. Mrs. Higgins did her part too, baking, cooking, canning, laundrying, breeding chickens and packing away their eggs.
I gained new insight into a farmer’s existence. In fact, though I came from a purely agricultural civilization, this was my first time to farm actually, or to know what farming means. I could see Mr. Higgins’ days backward and forward. When the cold disappeared as the winter snow began to melt, his mind would be bent on planting beans, peas, corn, and other vegetables; as soon as the smell of the fresh earth rose from the ground blown up by the early spring thaw, long before the small birds and little chickens roused from the egg to a playful mood, his work would begin. From then on he was busy every hour. Only during the long deadly winter hours could a farmer loaf, and sit dreaming before the kitchen stove.
There was an awkward plow that for many months rusted in the winter storehouse, a conservative yet faithful instrument with a personality resembling Farmer Higgins’ own, or those slow cows or that big dog or horse. And, oh, what uphill, tedious work with that! I know, for I helped Mr. Higgins to plant the late vegetables, while, like his plow, he worked, slowly and surely. He was a big, rather gangling man, always placid and friendly. He would tell me stories as we worked, stories out of his own experiences or from his biblical readings. He loved to repeat the scriptural allegory as he sowed: “Some seeds are eaten by wild birds, some cast upon rocks to wither away, but the seed sown in sound soil increases a hundredfold.” (I inspired him to such talks whenever he looked at me, for to him I was the confirmation of his spiritual life, that bread upon the waters coming home.)
Mr. Higgins had simple thoughts and simple aspirations. I do not think he ever felt any ambitions away from farming. And though commerce and industry took over the neighboring towns year by year, with stores and factories ever on the increase, Mr. Higgins remained a farmer just the same. He was ignorant of what was going on in the world, in politics or business or economics, except what concerned him in his farming—farming on a small scale, for his was a small place, a small family enterprise. His narrow, upright life was as simple as his home and business. He was not a member of any club, such as the Rotary, Elks, or Kiwanis—he was not sophisticated enough. And he was so very conservative in politics, he even did not know if he disliked or if he approved of labor unions, socialism or anything like that. Such things he did not understand. He understood the Bible, the only book he ever read with concentration, and he took pride that the early biblical people were farmers like himself. He was narrow in all lines, just as he was conservative in his religious views, but ever unpretentious. He and his wife were good church members of a local Baptist congregation, going not to the nearest town (there was no church of their denomination there) but to the next nearest town, for which they hitched up the old farm horse to the buggy. Each thing was rigidly right or wrong for them, even the difference between sprinkling and immersion. Sectarian rivalry was strong in that little farming community where men and women read the Bible and little else. To them the Christian Gospels still had a lot of
heat to warm them up. The Higginses were just the kind of people staunchly back of missions in the Orient. Humble and hard-working . . . supporting, out of meager incomes, missionaries in foreign fields, getting their romance that way and in attending eagerly to the pastor of the little Baptist church, who preached, to serve God always and to fight against sin.
Life was almost harshly simple. And it was not easy. For instance, I did not have much time for studying, no more than an hour a day, although often I goaded myself to work from two to four hours after supper before going to bed, while all the time I nodded in heavy lethargy. And next day it was very hard to get up in the morning. One appreciated as never before conditions in the Orient where scholars, however unfairly, were exempted from physical labor. The summer mornings were burning hot, but Farmer Higgins took no account of that. I never saw a busier man than he was in the field! There was always haying to do. Timothy and clover grew on the meadows and high tall grasses, to be piled into those haystacks by the big barn. Mr. Higgins would swing the scythe with a full round stroke. He was very good at haying. He worked like an artist at it and I often thought his great gangling body at such moments had beauty and rhythm and peace in its every movement; but he never knew it himself. My work most of the time was hoeing, hoeing the corn, the potatoes and other crops in the garden. It must be done about 11 or 12 in the morning when the sun was high and hot, and it seemed to me the hardest work of all. Those weeds . . . I felt a kind of pity for them as I worked. They were just as good-looking as the crops, sometimes much better, for many meadow flowers grew among them. I could not hate them except that they did not give fruits, and still they tried to compete. Poor weeds! poor golden daisies! And as soon as I had cut them off from their cool roots in the earth, the hot sun dried them up. That sun was merciless. Farmer Higgins and I and even Mrs. Higgins, we all had faces baked like cake with little cracks. Yes, farming, if you do it only a few hours a day, is a wholesome pleasure. But if you do it all the day long, getting up very early and not stopping until sundown, then it is very hard work. There are so many elements to watch, the sky, the insect-breeding land, the weeds, the fruit that must be picked when exactly ripe. Then the bird enemies constantly to chase away. With his old clothes Farmer Higgins made another Farmer Higgins and stood him up in the fields as sentinel for the crows. Always one must be watching, and working, every minute.
Mr. Higgins kept saying with satisfaction that this year was going to be a good one. A full year meant a farmer could make a small nest egg for the shoes, hats, and winter clothes needed, perhaps store a little surplus in that local bank account, hoarding it up for the lean years. But even so I saw that Farmer Higgins on his small farm could never make anything like prosperity or luxury. And though the Higginses were master and mistress, they worked harder than I who was the hired man. There were never any loafing days, not even Saturday or Sunday. Well, Sundays were free for me, but not for Farmer Higgins or Mrs. Higgins. There were the milking, the feeding of chickens, horses, pigs, and cows . . . all seeming to occur on a farm very often. Besides the house chores, Mrs. Higgins went, all other days but Sundays, to the woods and waste patches, to gather the wild fruits and berries, or out to the vegetable plots, to pick beans and peas; for all that was not eaten or sold right away must be put in jars for the winter. Mr. Higgins himself arose the earliest, to make his milk deliveries in the near-by villages. When he came back, we had the big breakfast, cereals, hot breads, coffee, eggs, and pie. After that I worked beside him all day, without skill perhaps but with my utmost energy. Before he had always hired skilled laborers like himself, and it did not take me long to find out that farm work requires skill and experience as well as any other trade. But he had also paid them more money. Still, with my unskilled work and the aid of machinery, Farmer Higgins could do very well with just us two. I thought of him often in connection with the farmers of Asia. No doubt in Asia he might have been accounted a prosperous man, and many others would be working for him. At least, he was never in danger of famine or starvation, and he by himself was able to produce more than a hundred Chinese farmers could produce. This was because of his labor-saving devices, though he did not even know that he was living in the Machine Age. . . .
When the summer was over, the Higginses said good-bye to me as to a son. They had become much interested in me over the summer, and I’m afraid they even hoped I would do something grand in the way of glorifying God and the Baptist missionaries. I had thirty dollars to take away with me, all rolled up in one-dollar bills and put away in an old wallet given me by Farmer Higgins. Many weeks it took to accumulate so much, made by sweating under the burning noon. My wages had amounted to slightly more, but I had bought some books and shirts and other things. Mrs. Higgins fixed me up an abundant lunch and put it into a large paper box, enough to last for days. I started out, suitcase in one hand, lunch box in the other. I walked until I came to the street-car line. Then I got in and rode toward Boston. The long street-car ride took half a day.
2
I had decided that I wouldn’t enroll as a student that year. I would use the libraries for my own reading. And I would try to support myself more adequately. Useless, I thought, to work and to prepare for examinations at the same time. For a week or two, without going to the dean, I read assiduously, attacking many of the books I had not been able to read during my courses last winter, especially the books on Greek culture which had interested me. Then I became alarmed by inroads into my thirty-dollar capital. I stopped reading at the library and began to walk the streets again, looking for a job. The season at the New Hotel had not yet opened. Up and down I went, in and out, over the crooked hilly streets of Boston. No work anywhere, no work for me. (How the commercial people looked at me with cold and alien stares! Oh, how many thousand years would it take to have that Bostonian air with congealed pride all its own!)
While walking around, I encountered Charles Evans. We sat on a bench on the Common and talked. Charles was enrolled, of course, and taking classes. He was much disappointed when I told him of my decision to drop out for a year; he disapproved. A few days later, owing to this meeting with Charles, I received a note from Professor Burton (in charge of the foreign students) asking me to call at his office. Professor Burton expostulated with me and urged me to enroll at once, offering me again the part-time scholarship and the fifty-dollar debt (now increased to $100 by addition to last year’s). I hesitated. I asked if instead of taking a half-scholarship for a year, I could take a whole scholarship for six months. We went to see the president and the dean. My plan was all right with the president, but not with the dean, who said if I was having a hard time in Boston, I should go back to Maritime from which I had transferred. Again I refused the half-scholarship and said I would go on reading in my own way. Professor Burton would not let me do this. He talked to me very seriously, said in his opinion I was making a grave mistake. At all costs I must struggle on in the conventional way and gain my college diploma. Of course he was right. But there it was, as Kim remarked, the importance of the rubber stamp.
So against my better judgment, I embarked the second year on that ghastly business of studying on an undernourished stomach. There were distinct advantages, though, in not having a job. At least, one could get some studying done that way, by the use of libraries and borrowed books. I went without meals often, but a loaf of bread sufficed for a few days. My stomach shrank and became meek.
While the weather was fair, it must be confessed, in spite of attending classes in college like a gentleman, I lived like a hobo. I slept on park benches in the daytime, and dozed in a chair in waiting rooms at night. But as the weather grew colder, I had a stroke of luck. I met again a Mr. Rhinehart who had visited Green Grove while I was there. He made me a kind of errand boy for him, licking postage stamps, etc. And he did me a real service by letting me sleep on the couch in his office at night. The first night I moved in, it caused some excitement to the night watchman, whom Mr. Rhinehart had forgotten
to inform. The watchman found me in that bed, with sheets and all—provided by kind Mr. Rhinehart—and the watchman wanted to call up the Police Department at once. It was a dark, conservative-looking office building not far from the Back Bay section. I was given a key. From five o’clock on I could study there in solitude. Being heated during the day, this office was not cold at night, and made a most comfortable lodging.
I knew many other students who were as hard up as I. One, Cortesi, I met in the chemistry laboratory. He was the son of a poor Italian farmer from the country thereabouts, one of eleven children, and with nothing but his own brains and ambitions to help him on. Chemistry was Cortesi’s passion, his greatest source of pleasure, his romance. He was a slender, frail fellow, with light brown hair and no beard, so that he never needed shaving. His hands were very white and delicate, as if he had never done any manual labor in his life. Both his hands and his brains were very quick. He seemed very shy. But in laboratory work, if nobody else was around, we had much mirth and laughter. He was more at home in a laboratory than anywhere else. Cheerful and quick, working always with a great enthusiasm, like a cat who has got a rat.
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