CHAPTER V. IN WHICH WE BORE FOE WATER
We joined the Despair Association finally by reason of our waterproblem. However, that was to come into our lives later. Through thespringtime we had more water than we could possibly hope to use, and wefocused our attentions and our energies upon hacking a homestead out ofthe briar patch we had bought.
A painful acre at a time, we cleared lands that once had been cleared.As I may have stated already, forty-odd years of disuse had turned lawnspace, garden space and meadow into one conglomerate jungle of toweringweeds and tangled thorny underbrush, stretching from the broken fencesalong the highroad straight back to the dooryard of the molderingtumbledown dwelling. With a gang of men under a competent foreman, anda double team of hired horses, we assaulted that tangle, bringing to theundertaking much of the same ardor and some of the same fortitude whichI imagine must have inspired Stanley on the day when he began choppinghis way through the trackless wilds of the dark forest to find DoctorLivingstone.
It gave one the feeling of being a pioneer and a pathfinder--no, not apathfinder; a pathmaker--to stand by, superintending in a large, broad,general, perfectly ignorant fashion the job of opening up those thicketsof ours to the sunlight that had not visited them for ever so long. Offof one segment of our property, a slope directly behind the main house,we took over four hundred wagonloads of stumps, roots, trunks, boughsand brush--the fruitage of nearly two months of steady labor on the partof men and horses.
The brambles were shorn down and piled in heaps to be burned. Thelocusts, thousands of them, varying in size from half-grown trees toswitchy saplings, were by main force snatched out of the ground bodily.A number of long-dead chestnuts and hickories, great unsightly snagsthat reared above the uptom harried earth like monuments to pastneglect, were felled and sawed into cordwood lengths and carted away.
What emerged after these things had been done more than repaid us forall our pains. When the rumpled soil had been smoothed back and plowedand harrowed, and sown to grass, and when the grass had sprouted aspromptly as it did, there stood forth a dimpling green expanse wherebefore had been a damp, moldy and almost impenetrable tangle, hidingtreasure-troves of old tin cans, heaps of rusted and broken farmingimplements and here and there the bleached-out bones of a dead cow or adeceased horse.
To our abounding astonishment, we found ourselves the owners of aconsiderable number of old but healthy apple trees and a whole grove ofcherry trees that we hadn't known were there at all, so thoroughly hadthey been buried in the locusts and the sumacs. It was just like findingthem. Indeed, it was finding them.
The old house came down next, with some slight assistance from a crew ofwreckers. Being almost ready to come down of its own accord it met themhalfway. They had merely to pry into the foundations, hit her a hardwallop in the ribs, and then run for their lives. From the wreckagewe reclaimed, out of the cellar, which was pre-Revolutionary, somehand-hewn oak beams in a perfect state of preservation; and out of theupper floors, which were pre-James K. Polk, a quantity of interior trim,along with door frames and window sashes.
Incidentally we dispossessed a large colony of rats and a whole synodof bats, a parish of yellow wasps and a small but active congregationof dissenting cats--half-wild, glary-eyed, roach-backed, mangy cats thatresided under the broken flooring. In all there were fourteen ofthese cats--swift and rangy performers, all of them. One and all, theyobjected to being driven from home. They hung about the razed wreckage,and by night they convened in due form upon a bare knoll hard by, andheld indignation meetings.
Parliamentary disputes arose frequently, with the result that theproceedings might be heard for a considerable distance. I took stepsto break up these deliberations, and after several of the principaldebaters had met a sudden end--I am a very good wing shot on cats--thesurvivors saw their way clear to departing entirely from the vicinity.Within a week thereafter the song birds, which until then had beenstrangely scarce upon the premises, heard the news, and began comingin swarms. We put up nesting boxes and feeding shelves, and long beforeJune arrived we had hundreds of feathered boarders and a good many pairsof feathered tenants.
One morning in the early part of the month of June I counted withinsight at one time fourteen varieties of birds, including suchbrilliantly colored specimens as a scarlet tanager and his mate;a Baltimore oriole; a bluebird; an indigo bunting; a chat; and aflicker--called, where I came from, a yellow hammer. Robins were probingfor worms in the rank grass; two brown thrashers and a black-billedcuckoo were investigating the residential possibilities of a cedar treenot far away; and from the woods beyond came the sound of a cock grousedrumming his amorous fanfare on a log.
Think of what that meant to a man who, for the better part of twelveyears, had been hived up in a flat, with English sparrows for company,when he craved a bit of wild life!
What had been a gardener's cottage stood at the roadside a hundred yardsaway from the site of the main house. On first examination it seemed fitonly for the scrap heap; but one of those wise elderly persons whoare to be found in nearly every rural community--a genius who waspart carpenter, part mason, part painter, part glazier and partplasterer--was called into consultation, and he decided that, giventime and material for mending, he might be able to do something withthe shell. Modestly he called himself an odd-jobs man; really he was adoctor to decrepit and ailing structures.
From neglect and dry rot the patient was almost gone; but he nursedit back to a new lease on life, trepanning its top with new rafters,splinting its broken sides with new clapboards. He cured the cellarwalls of rickets, the roof of baldness, and the inside woodwork oftetter; and he so wrought with hammer and saw and nails, with lime andcement, with paintbrush and putty knife, that presently what had been amost disreputable blot on the landscape became not only a livable littlehouse but an exceedingly picturesque one, what with its wide overhanginggables, its cocky little front veranda, and its new complexion ofroughcast stucco.
While this transformation was accomplished in the lower field, we weredoing things to the barn up on the hillside. It had good square lines,the barn had; and, though its outer casing was in a woeful state ofnonrepair, its frame, having been built sixty or seventy years ago ofsplendid big timbers, stood straight and unskewed. Thanks to the abilityof our architect to dream an artistic dream and then to create it, thisstructure, without impairment of its general lines and with no change atall in its general dimensions, presently became a combination garage andbungalow.
The garage part was down below, occupying the space formerly given overto horse stalls and cow sheds. Here, also, a furnace room, a laundryand a servant's room were built in. Above were the housekeepingquarters--three bedrooms; two baths; a big living hall, with awide-mouthed fireplace in it; a kitchen, and a pantry. This floor hadbeen the haymow; but I'll warrant that if any of the long-vanished haywhich once rested there could have returned it wouldn't have known theold place.
The roof of the transmogrified mow was sufficiently high to permit theconstruction of a roomy attic, with accommodations for one sleeper atone end of it, and ample storage space besides.
At the back of the building, where the teams had driven in, a littlesquare courtyard of weathered brick was laid; a roof of rough Vermontslate was laid on in an irregular splotchy pattern of buff and yellowand black squares; and finally, upon the front, at the level of thesecond floor, the builder hung on a little Italian balcony, from whichon clear days, looking south down the Hudson, we have a forty-milestretch of landscape and waterscape before us.
On the nearer bank, two miles away, the spires of the market town showabove the tree tops; on the further bank, six miles away, the rumpledblue outlines of the Ramapo Hills bulk up against the sky line; and backof those hills are sunsets such as ambitious artists try, more or lessunsuccessfully, to put on canvas.
All this had not cost so much as it might have, because all the interiortrim, all the doors and windows, and all the studs and joists andbeams had been reclaimed from the
demolished main building. The chiefextravagances had been a facing of stonework for the garage front and astucco dress for the upper walls. We broke camp and moved in.
For a month or so we went along swimmingly. One morning we quitswimming. All of a sudden we woke up to find there was no longersufficient water for aquatic pastimes.
The absolutely unprecedented dry spell that occurs every second or thirdyear in this part of the North Temperate Zone had descended upon us,taking us, as it were, unawares. The brooks were going dry; the grasson hillsides where the soil was thin turned from a luscious green to aparched brown; and the mother spring of our seven up the valley, whichhad gushed so plenteously, now diminished overnight, as it were, intoa puny runlet. There were no indications that the spring would beabsolutely dry; but there was every indication that it would continueto lessen in the volume of its output--which it did. We summoned friendsand well-wishers into consultation, and by them were advised to dig anartesian well.
We did not want to bother with artesian wells then. We were living verycomfortably upstairs over the garage and we were planning the house wemeant to build. We had drawn plans, and yet more plans, torn them upand started all over again; and had found doing this to be one ofthe deepest pleasures of life. Time without end we had conferred withfriends who had built houses of their own, and who gave us their ideasof the things which would be absolutely indispensable to our comfort andhappiness in our new house. We had incorporated these ideas with a fewof our own, and then we had found that if we meant to construct a housewhich would please all concerned, ourselves included, there would beneeded a bond issue to float the enterprise and the completed structurewould be about the size of a cathedral. So then we would trim down,paring off a breakfast porch here and a conservatory there, until wehad a design for a compact edifice not much larger than an averagesizedrailroad terminal.
Between times, when not engaged in the pleasing occupation of buildingour house on paper, we chose the site where it should stand. This, also,consumed a good many days, because each time we decided on a differentlocation. One of our favorite recreations was shifting the house wemeant to build about from place to place. We put imaginary wheels underthat imaginary home of ours and kept it traveling all over the farm. Thetrouble with us was we had too much latitude. With half an acre of landat our disposal, we should have been circumscribed by boundary lines.On half an acre you have to be reasonably definite about where youare going to build; slide too far one way or the other, and you arecommitting trespass, and litigation ensues. But we had sixty acres fromwhich to pick and to choose--sixty acres, with desirable sites scatteredall over the tract.
No sooner had we absolutely and positively settled on one spot as thespot where the house must stand than we would find half a dozen othersequally desirable, or even more so; and then, figuratively speaking,we would pick up the establishment and transport it to one of the newlydiscovered spots, and wheel it round to face in a different directionfrom the direction in which it had just been facing. If a thing thatdoes not yet physically exist may have sensations, the poor dizzy thingmust have felt as if it were a merry-go-round.
Likewise we were very busy putting in our road. Up until a shorttime ago Miss Anna Peck, who makes a specialty of scaling supposedlyinaccessible crags, was probably the only living person who could havederived any pleasure from penetrating to our mountain fastness, eitherafoot or otherwise. When we heard an engine in difficulties coughingdown under the hill, followed by the sound of a tire blowing out, or bythe smell of rubber scorching as the brakes clamped into the fabric, weknew some of our friends had been reckless enough to undertake toclimb up by motor. So, unless we wanted to become hermits, we felt itincumbent upon us to put in a road.
When we got the estimates on the job we decided that the contractor musthave figured on building our road of chalcedony or onyx or moss agate orsome other of the semi-precious stones. It didn't seem possible that hemeant to use any native material--at that price. It turned out, though,that his bid was fairly moderate--as processed blue-stone roads go inthis climate; and ours has cost us only about eight times as much as Ihad previously supposed a replica of the Appian Way would cost. However,it has been pronounced a very good road by critics who should know; nota fancy road, but a fair average one.
It would look smarter, of course, with wide brick gutters down eitherside of it for its entire length; and I should add brick gutters, too,if I were as comfortably fixed, say, as Mr. Charles Schwab, and feltsure that I could get some of the Vanderbilt boys to help me out in caseI ran short of funds before the job was completed. Still, for personswho live simply it does very well.
With all these absorbing employments to engage us, we naturally wereloath to turn our attentions to water. We had lived too long in a flatwhere, when you wanted water, you merely turned a faucet. To us waterhad always been a matter of course. But now the situation was different.With each succeeding day the flow from our spring was slackening. In itspresent puniness it was no more than a reminder of the brave stream ofthe springtime.
There was a water witch, so called, in the neighborhood--a gentlemanwater witch. We were recommended to avail ourselves of his services. Itwas his custom, we were told, to arm himself with a forked peach-treeswitch and walk about over the land, holding the wand in front of him byits two prongs, meantime muttering strange incantations. When he cameto a spot where water lay close to the surface the other end of hisdivining rod would dip magically toward the earth. You dug there, and ifyou struck water the magician took the credit for it; and if you didn'tstrike water it was a sign the peach-tree switch had wilfully deceivedits proprietor, and he cut a fresh twig off another and more dependabletree and gave you a second demonstration at half rates. However, beforeopening negotiations with this person, I bethought me to interview theman who had contracted to do the boring.
The latter gentleman proved to be the most noncommittal man I ever metin my life. He was as chary about making predictions as to the result ofoperations in his line as the ticket agent of a jerkwater railroaddown South is about estimating the probable time of arrival of the nextpassenger train--always conceding that there is to be any next train;and that is as chary as any human being can possibly be. Only upon onething was he positive, which was that no peach-tree switch in the worldcould be educated up to the point where it could find water that washidden underground.
Man and boy, he had been boring wells for thirty years, he said; andit was all guess. One shaft would be put down--at three dollars afoot--until it pierced the roof of Tophet, and the only resultantmoisture would be night sweats for the unhappy party who was footing thebills. Or the same prospector might dig his estate so full of circularholes that it would resemble honeycomb tripe, and never get anythingexcept monthly statements for the work to date. On the other hand,a luckier man, living right across the way, had been known to startsinking a shaft, and before the drill had gone twenty feet it becamenecessary to remove the women and children to a place of safety untilthe geyser had been throttled down.
This particular well digger's business, as he himself explained, wasdigging wells, not filling them after they were dug. He guaranteed tomake a hole in the ground of suitable caliber for an artesian well,but Nature and Providence must do the rest. With this understanding, hefetched up his outfit and greased himself and the machinery all over,and announced that he was ready to start.
So we picked out a spot where it would be convenient to build a pumphouse afterward, and he fixed up the engine and began grinding away.And he ground and ground and ground. Every morning, whistling a cheerfulair, he would set his drills in circular motion, and all day he wouldkeep it turning and turning. At eventide I would call on him and hewould report progress--he had advanced so many feet or so many yards ina southerly direction and had encountered such and such a formation.
"Any water?" At first I would put up the question hopefully, thennervously, and finally for the sake of regularity merely.
"No water," he would reply b
lithely; "but this afternoon about threeo'clock I hit a stratum of the prettiest white quartz you ever saw inyour life." And, with the passion of the born geologist gleaming in hiseye, he would pick up a handful of shining specimens and hold them outfor me to admire; but I am afraid that toward the last any enthusiasmdisplayed by me was more or less forced.
And the next night it would be red sandstone, or gray mica, or sky-blueschist, or mottled granite, or pink iron ore--or something! Thisabandoned farm of ours certainly proved herself to be a mightyvariegated mineral prospect. In the course of four weeks that six-inchhole brought forth silver and solder, soda and sulphur, borax andsoapstone, crystal and gravel, amalgam fillings and a very fair grade ofmoth balls.
It brought forth nearly everything that may be found beneath the surfaceof the earth, I think, except radium--and water. On second thought, I amnot so sure about the radium. It occurs to me that we did strike a traceof something resembling radium at the two-hundred-foot level--I won't bepositive. But I am absolutely sure about the water. There wasn't any.
At the end of a long and expensive month we abandoned that hole,fruitful though it was in mineral wealth, moved the machinery a hundredyards west, and began all over again. We didn't get any water here,either; but before we quit we ran into a layer of wonderful whitemarble. If anybody ever discovers a way of getting marble for monumentsand statuary out of a hole six inches in diameter and a hundred andseventy-five feet deep our fortunes are made. We have the hole andthe marble at the bottom of it; all he will have to provide is themachinery.
By now we were desperate, but determined. We sent word to George Creelto rush us application blanks for membership in his Despair Association.We transferred the digging apparatus to a point away down in thevalley, and the contractor retuned his engine and inserted a new steeldrill--his other one had been worn completely out--and we began boringa third time. And three weeks later--oh, frabjous joy!--we struckwater--plenteous oodles of it; cold, clear and pure. And then we brokeground for our new house.
That isn't all--by no means is it all. Free from blight, our potatoesare in the bin; our apples have been picked; and our corn has beengathered, and in a rich golden store, it fills our new corncrib. We areeating our own chickens and our own eggs; we are drinking milk from ourown cow; and we are living on vegetables of our own raising.
Until now I never cared deeply for turnips. Turnips, whether yellow orwhite, meant little in my life. But now I know that was because theywere strange turnips, not turnips which had grown in our own soil andfor which I could have almost a paternal affection. Last night fordinner I ate a derby hatful of mashed turnips, size seven and an eighth.
Let the servants quit now if they will--and do. Only the day beforeyesterday the laundress walked out on us. It was our new laundress, whohad succeeded the old laundress, the one who stayed with us for nearlytwo consecutive weeks before the country life palled upon her sensitivespirit. And the day before that we lost a perfect treasure of ahousemaid. She disliked something that was said by some one occupyingthe comparatively unimportant position of a member of the family, andshe took umbrage and some silverware and departed from our fireside.We've had our troubles with cooks, too.
When the latest one showed signs of a gnawing discontent I offered totake lessons on the ukulele and play for her in the long winterevenings that are now upon us. I suggested that we think up charades andacrostics--I am very fertile at acrostics--and have anagram parties nowand then to while away the laggard hours. But no; she felt the call ofthe city and she must go. We are expecting a fresh candidate to-morrow.We shall try to make her stay with us, however brief, a pleasant one.
But these domestic upsets are to us as nothing at all; for we havestruck water, and we are living, in part at least, on our own home-grownprovender, and shortly we shall start the home of our dreams. And to-daysomething else happened that filled our cup of joy to overflowing. Inthe middle of the day a dainty little doe came mincing down through ourgarden just as confidently as though she owned the place.
We are less than an hour by rail from the Grand Central Station; andyet, as I write this line, a lordly cock grouse is strutting proud andunafraid through the undergrowth not fifty yards from my workroom! Lastnight, when I opened my bedroom window--in the garage--to watch thedistant reflection of the New York lights, flickering against the sky tothe southward, I heard a dog fox yelping in the woods!
Let Old Major Gloom, the human Dismal Swamp, come over now as often aspleases him. Our chalice is proof against his poison.
The Abandoned Farmers Page 5
