no use talking, the best part of a vacation is getting home. we were all sorry to leave cape cod. to tell you the truth duty seemed to be stuck full of thorns a foot long as we looked back at it from the easy bed of a loafer on his vacation. no wonder the poor little bud cried when our good host kissed her good-bye. we looked at her with much the same expression as that on the face of the woman who missed an important train by half a minute and listened to the forcible remark of a man who was also left! we got over that, however. the harness was put on our shoulders so gently that we hardly felt it, and here we are again with a soft pad of gentle and happy memories to put where the rub comes hardest. everything was all o. k. at home. grandmother was in good spirits, the chunk reported good sales, and the weather had been fair for farm work. the boys had the corn all cleaned up and the weeds mostly cut. the strawberries have been transplanted; the alfalfa clipped off; the squashes have grown into a perfect tangle of vines, the sweet potatoes look well, and there is no blight in the late white ones! the children found nine new little pigs and 30 new chickens waiting them. yes! yes! it was a happy homecoming. i climbed the hill on sunday and looked off over the old familiar valley. there were the same glorious old hills with the shadows chasing along them, the little streams stealing down through their fringes of grass and bushes, the cultivated fields, and the homes of neighbors peeping out through the orchards! surely home is a goodly place after all. other places are good to come away from, but home is the place to go to!
now, i know that many of my readers are in trouble. i am, and every mail brings news from people who are carrying crosses and facing hard duties with more or less bravery. there are women left alone on the farm, striving to drag a heavy heart through life. men have seen wife and child pass away. others have seen hopes and ambitions crushed out. this season has been hard for many. i will quote from a letter just at hand from central new york, where flood and storm have scarred the hillsides and ruined crops:
“one neighbor hung himself; one says he shall have an auction and go to the old ladies’ home; another had the blues until he cried.”
now, in spite of all the talk we have of the nation’s great prosperity, i know that there are thousands of sad hearts in country homes, sad because they have seen the cherished things of life and the work of self-denying years swept out of their grasp by a power which they could neither master nor comprehend. the picture of a strong man dropping his head upon the table and crying like a child is the saddest vision that can rise before our eyes. farm life has its tragic side, and the sadness of it would crush us down at times if we would permit it to do so. no wonder men and women grow despondent when with each year comes a little more of the living blight which slowly destroys hope and faith in one’s physical ability to master the secret of happiness. i do not blame men and women who give way to despondency under pressure of griefs which have staggered me. i only regret that they cannot realize that for most of the afflicted of middle years the only true help is a moral one.
i feel like repeating that last sentence, though it may come like the application of a liniment i knew as a boy. the old man who brought me up invented a certain “lotion.” whenever i cut or burned my flesh that lotion bottle was hauled out, a hen’s feather inserted and a liberal allowance smeared over the wound. it was like rubbing liquid fire on the flesh, but it did pull the smart out and carry it far away. i used to imagine that the “lotion” gathered the pain all into a lump and pulled it out by the roots with one quick twitch. one of the most helpful books i have ever read is a little volume entitled “deafness and cheerfulness.” i read it over and over, and i wish that every deaf man or friend of a deaf man could have it. i find in this little book the following message which i commend to all who feel their courage giving way:
“the noblest dealing with misfortune is in manly silence to bear it; the next to the meanest is in feebleness to weep over it; the wholly unpardonable is to ask others to weep also.”
with the first and third of these propositions i fully agree. it is not always a sign of weakness for a man to get off into solitude somewhere and find relief in tears. when the tear glands are completely dried up the man loses an element of character which all the iron in his will cannot replace. but “manly silence” is the “noblest dealing with misfortune”—and also the hardest. it is human to cry out and complain at the pain of what we call injustice, but if the child is human should not the grown man be something more? what are years and the burning balm of experience given us for if not to enable us to rise up nearer to divine strength? as i look about me it occurs that most of us who have reached middle life or beyond have grown unconsciously away from childhood and youthful strength. we somehow feel that people ought to regard us as others did 25 years ago. the fat man of 45 is no longer the young sprout of 20, though he may think so. if i am not mistaken, one great trouble with many of us is the fact that we crave and beg for the things that go with youth when in reality we are grown-up men and women! it is our duty now to face life and its problems, not with the careless hope of youth, but with the sober and abiding faith that should come with mature years. run over a child’s ambitions and, after his short grief, his spirits rise again for the next opportunity. the man’s hopes are shaken by repeated defeat, and hope of physical victory finds itself caged at every turn by former defeat. we may grieve or despond over this and play the child; or we may act the man, raise our hopes and ideals above the range of former defeat, and find comfort and courage in doing the things which shame infirmity and affliction. i know some of you will say that this complacent man may moralize—but give him a touch of trouble, and how he would whine! i hope not! trouble has taken many a mouthful out of us but, if i thought any honest friend really meant that, it would be the greatest trouble of all. i repeat that the greatest comfort to the despondent must be a moral one, yet the riding of some harmless hobby helps one to walk with fortitude. let a man say to himself that he will study and work to breed the finest pigs or raise the finest strawberries or master some science or public question, and he will find strength and comfort in his work! i’ll promise not to attempt any more preaching for a good while if you will let me end this little sermon with a quotation from whittier:
“soon or late to all our dwellings come the specters of the mind;
doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in the darkness undefined.
round us throng the grim projections of the heart and of the brain,
and our pride of strength is weakness, and the cunning hand is vain.
in the dark we cry like children; and no answer from on high
breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and no white wings downward fly.
but the heavenly help we pray for, comes to faith and not to sight,
and our prayers themselves drive backward all the spirits of the night.”
