February 22, 2024 • 54 mins
Sinclair Lewis - Nobel Prize in Literature 1930 - "Land" is a compelling narrative that delves into the life of Sidney Dow, a young man caught between the expectations of urban success and the call of rural heritage. Set against the backdrop of early 20th century America, this story navigates the complexities of identity, ambition, and familial obligation. Sidney, named for elegance yet rooted in generations of rural Dows, finds himself at odds with his father's urban aspirations for him. Lewis's masterful storytelling brings to life the struggle of a young man torn between the slick bustle of Brooklyn and the enchanting simplicity of a Vermont farm. "Land" is not just a story of personal awakening; it's a poignant exploration of the American dream and the timeless quest for a sense of belonging.
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Sinclair, lewis Land. He wasnamed Sydney for the sake of elegance,
just as his parents had for elegancein their Brooklyn parlor, a golden oak
combination bookcase, desk and shield shapedmirror. But Sidney Dow was descended from
generations of George and John's, ofLorentz and Luke's and Nathan's. He was
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little esteemed in the slick bustle ofhis city school. He seemed a loudish
boy, tall and heavy and slowspoken, and he was a worry to
his father, For William Dow wasan ambitious parent. Born on a Vermont
farm, William felt joyously that hehad done well in the great city of
Brooklyn. He had in eighteen eightyfive when Sydney was born, a real
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bathroom with a fine tin tub,gas lights, and a handsome phaeton with
red wheels instead of the wash tubin the kitchen for Saturday night baths,
the kerosene lamps, and the heavyold buggy which his father still used in
Vermont. Instead of being up atfive thirty, he could lull abed till
a quarter of seven, and healmost never he chuckled in gratification at his
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progress was in his office before aquarter to eight. But the luxury of
a red wheeled carriage in late Lynedid not indicate that William's yankee shrewdness had
been cousined by urban wece, orthat he was any less solid and respectable
than Old George, his own father. He was a deacon in the Universalist
Church. He still said grace beforemeals, and he went to the theater
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only when ben hur was appearing.For his son, Sidney, William Dow
had even larger ambitions. William himselfhad never gone to high school, and
his business was only a cautious realestate and insurance agency. His home a
squatting two story brick house in ared, monotonous row. But Sidney,
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he should go to college. Heshould be a doctor, or a preacher,
or a lawyer. He should travelin Europe. He should live in
a three story greystone house in theforties in Manhattan. He should have a
dress suit and wear it to respectablebut expensive hops. William had once worn
dress clothes at an odd fellow's ball, but they had been rented to enable
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Sydney to attain all these graces.William toiled and sacrificed and prayed. American
fathers have always been as extraordinary asScotch fathers in their heroic ambitions for their
sons, and sometimes as unscrupulous andas unwise. It bruised William, and
often it made him naggingly unkind tosee that Sydney, the big slug,
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did not appreciate how his parents weretrying to do for him and give him
every opportunity. When they had acelebrated Columbia Heights physician as guest for dinner,
Sydney merely gawked at him and didnot at all try to make an
impression. Suffering cats, you mighthave been one of your uncles, still
puttering around with dirty picks back onthe farm. What are you going to
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do with yourself anyway, raged William. I guess maybe I'd like to be
a truck driver, mumbled Sydney.Yet even so William should not have whipped
him. It only made him sulkierto Sidney Dow At sixteen his eagerest memories
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were of occasional weeks he had spentwith his grandfather and uncles on the Vermont
farm, and the last of thesewas seven years back. Now he remembered
Vermont as an enchanted place with curiousand amusing animals cows, horses, turkeys.
He wanted to return, but hisfather seemed to hate the place of
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Brooklyn. Sydney liked nothing save liverystables and occasional agreeable gang fights with stones
inside iceed snowballs. He hated school, where he had to cramp his big
knees under trifling desks, where irritablelady teachers tried to make him see the
imp hortans of a's going more rapidlythan b to the town of X,
a town in which he was evenless interested than in Brooklyn school, where
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hour on hour he looked over thetop of his geography and stolidly hated the
whiskers of Longfellow, Lowell, andWhittier. He hated the stiff, clean
collar and the itchy clean winter underwearconnected with Sunday school. He hated hot
evenings smelling of tarry pavements, andcold evenings when the pavements were slippery.
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But he didn't know that he hatedany of these things. He knew only
that his father must be right insaying that he was a bad, disobedient
ungrateful young whelp, and in hisheart he was as humble as in his
speech he was sullen. Then,at sixteen, he came to life suddenly
on an early June morning on hisgrandfather's farm. His father had sent him
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up to Vermont for the summer,had indeed exiled him, saying grimly,
I guess after you live in thattumble down big old shack, can work
in the fields and have to getup early instead of lying abed till your
majesty is good and ready to havethe girl wait on you. I guess
that next fall you'll appreciate your nicehome and school and church. Here,
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young man, so sure of himselfwas his father that Sidney was convinced he
was going to encounter hardship on thefarm. And all the way up in
the smarting air of the smoker onthe slow train, he wanted to howl.
The train arrived at ten in theevening, and he was met by
his uncle Rob, a man ruggedas a pine trunk and about as articulate.
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Well come for the summer, saidUncle Rob. And after they had
driven three miles, got new Kafyanew calf, and after a mile more,
your pa all right, and thatwas all the conversation of Uncle Rob.
Seven years. It was since Sydneyhad been in any country wilder than
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far Rockaway, and the silent hillsof night intimidated him. It was a
roaring silence, a silence full ofstifled threats. The hills that cut the
stars so high up on either sidethe road seemed walls that would topple and
crush him as a man would crusha mosquito between his two palms. And
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once he cried out when in themilky light from the lantern swung beneath the
wagon, he saw a porcupine lurchinto the road before them. It was
dark, chill, unfriendly, andto the boy reared to the lights and
cheery voices of the city, eventhough he hated them, it was appallingly
lonely. His grandfather's house was dark. When they arrived. Uncle Rob drove
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into the barn, jerked his thumbat a ladder up to the haymow,
and muttered, a sleep up there, not aloud. Tea smoke. Take
this lantern when we've unharnessed, sureto put it out. No smoking in
the barn. Too tired to help, too tired. Sidney would have been
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glad to work till daylight if UncleRob would but stay with him. He
was in a panic at the thoughtof being left in the ghostly barn ware.
Behind the pawing of horses and thenibble of awakened cows, there were
the sounds of anonymous wild animal scratchings, squeaks, patterings overhead. He made
the task as slow as possible,though actually he was handy with horses,
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for the livery stables of Brooklyn hadbeen his favorite refuge, and he had
often been permitted to help the hostlersquite free ge Uncle Rob, I guess
I'm kind of all thumbs about unharnessingand like that seven years since I've been
here on the farm. That sogood night. Careful of that lantern now,
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and no smoking. The barn wasblank as a blind face. The
lantern was flickering, and in thatwitching light, the stalls and the heap
of sleighs plows old harness at theback wall of the barn were immense and
terrifying. The barn was larger thanhis whole house in Brooklyn, and ten
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times as large, it seemed.In the dimness he could not see clear
to the back wall, and heimagined abominable monsters lurking there. He dashed
at the ladder up to the haymow, the lantern handle in his teeth and
his imitation leather satchel in one hand, and the hay mow rising to the
darkness of its hand. Hewn raftersseemed vaster and more intimidating than the space
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below. In one corner, aspace had been cleared of hay for a
cot with a blanket and a peagreen comforter, and for a chair and
a hinged box. Sidney dashed atthe cot and crawled into it, waiting
only to take off his shoes andjacket till the lantern flame died down to
a red rim of charred wick.He kept it alight. Then utter darkness
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leaped upon him. A rooster crowed, and he startled past him. Things
scampered and chittered. The darkness seemedto swing in swift eddies under the rafters.
The smell of dry hay choked him, and he awoke to light slipping
in silver darts through cracks in theroof, and to jubilant barn swallows diving
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and twittering gee I must have fellasleep, he thought. He went down
the ladder, and now first hesaw the barn. Like many people,
slow of thought and doubtful of speech, Sydney Dow had moments of revelation as
complete as those of a prophet.When he beheld a scene, or a
person, or a problem in itsentirety, with none of the confusing thoughts
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of glibber and more clever people,with their minds forever running off on many
tracks. He saw the barn,really saw it, instead of merely glancing
at it like a normal city boy. He saw that the beams, hand
hewn gray with sixty years, werebeautiful. That the sides of the stalls
polish with rubbing by the shoulders ofcattle dead these fifty years were beautiful.
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That the harrow, with its trimspikes kept sharp and rustless, was beautiful.
That most beautiful of all were theanimals, cows and horses, chickens
that walked with bobbing heads through thestraw, and a calf tethered to the
wall. The calf cappered with alarmas he approached it, then stood considering
him with great eyes, letting himstroke its head, And at last Licking
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his hand, he slouched to thedoor of the barn and looked down the
valley. More radiant in that earlymorning light than even the mountain tops covered
with maples and hemlock were the uplandclearings with white houses and red barns.
Gosh, it looks nice. Itsits sort of it looks nice. I
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didn't hardly get it when I washere before. But gee, with all
the scorn of sixteen, I wasjust a kid. Then. With Uncle
Rob he drove the cows to pasture. With Uncle Ben he plowed. With
his grandfather, sourly philanthropic behind hisbeard, he split wood. He found
an even greater menagerie than in thebarn, turkeys, geese, ducks,
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pigs, and in the woods andmowings an exciting remnant of woodchucks, chipmunks,
rabbits and infrequent deer. With allof the munkels and grandfather beasts wild
or tame, he felt at home. They did not expect him to chatter
and show off, as had hisgang in Brooklyn. They accepted him that,
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perhaps more than any ancestral stoutness,more than the beauty of the land,
made a farmer of him. Hewas a natural hermit, and here
he could be a hermit without seemingqueer. And a good farmer. He
was slow, but tireless, patient, unannoyed by the endless work, happy
to go to bed early and beup at dawn. For a few days
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his back felt as though he wereburning at the stake. But after that
he could lift all day in thehay field, or swing the sun,
or drive the frisky young team.He was a good farmer, and he
slept at night. The noises whichon his first night had fretted his city
tortured nerves were so prific now,And when he heard the sound of a
distant train, the barking of adog on the next farm, he inarticulately
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told himself that they were lovely.You're pretty fair at working, said Uncle
Rob, And that was praise,almost hysterical. Indeed, in one aspect
of labor, Sydney was better thanany of them, even the pine carved
Uncle Rob. He could endure wetdawns, wild winds, all day,
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drenching. It seems to be truethat farmers are more upset by bad weather
than most outdoor workers, sailors,postmen, carpenters, brake men teamsters.
Perhaps it is because they are lesssubject to higher authority except for chores and
getting in the hay. They canmore nearly do things in their own time,
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and they build up a habit oftea making shelter on nasty days.
Whether or no, it was truethat just the city crises that had vexed
Sydney, from icy pavements to suddenfire alarms, had given him the ability
to stand discomforts and the unexpected,like a little Cockney. Surprisingly stolid in
the trenches, he learned the silenthumor of the authentic Yankee evenings. He
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sat with neighbors on the bench beforethe general store to a passing stranger.
They seemed to be saying nothing,but when the stranger had passed, Uncle
Rob would drawl, well, ifI had flying nets on my hosses,
guess I'd look stuck up too,and the others would chuckle with contempt at
the alien. This thought Sydney wasgood talk, not like the smart gabble
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of the city. It was allbeautiful, and he knew it, though
in his vocabulary there was no suchword as beautiful. And when he saw
the most flamboyant sunset, he said, only guess going to be clear tomorrow.
And so so he went back toBrooklyn, not as to his home,
but as to prison, and asa prison corridor. He saw the
narrow street with little houses like littlecells. Five minutes after he had entered
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the house, his father laughed,well, did you get enough of farming?
I guess you'll appreciate your school now. I won't rub it in,
but I swear how Rob and Bencan stand it. I kind of liked
it, Dad, I think I'llbe a farmer. I kind of liked
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it. His father had black sidewhiskers, and between them he had thin
cheeks that seemed after Uncle Rob andUncle Ben pallid as the underside of a
toadstool. They flushed now and Williamshouted, you're an idiot. What have
I done to have a son whois an idiot? The way I've striven
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and worked and economized to give youa chance to get ahead, to do
something worth while? And then youwant to slip right back and be ordinary
like your uncle's. So you thinkyou'd like it, You're a fool.
Sure you like it in summer,but if you knew it like I do,
roust it out to do the choresfive o'clock of a January morning,
twenty below zero, and maybe haveto dig through two feet of snow to
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get to the barn, have totramp down to the store, snowstorm so
thick you can't see five feet infront of you. I don't guess i'd
mind it much. Oh you don't. Don't be a fool. And no
nice company like here, go tobed with the chickens a winter night,
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and no nice lodge meeting or churchsupper or lectures like there is here.
Don't care so much for those things. Everybody talking all the while. I
like it quiet like in the country. Well, you will care so much
for those things, or I'll carryyou, my fine young man. I'm
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not going to let you slump backinto being a rube like Ben, And
don't you forget it. I'll makeyou work at your books. I'll make
you learn to appreciate good society anddressing proper and getting ahead in the world
and amounting to something, yes,sir, amounting to something. Do you
think for one moment that after thestruggle I've gone through to give you a
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chance. The way I studied ina country school and earned my way through
business college, and went to workat five dollars a week in a real
estate office, and studied and economizedand worked late so I could give you
this nice house and advantages and opportunity. No, sir, you're going to
be a lawyer or a doctor,or somebody that amounts to something, and
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not a rube. It would havebeen too much to expect of Sidney's imagination
that he should have seen anything fineand pathetic in William's fierce ambition. That
did not move him, but ratherfear he could have broken his father int
two. But the passion in thisblenched, filing case of a man was
such that it hypnotized him for days. Miserably returned to high school. He
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longed for the farm, but hismother took him aside and begged, you
mustn't oppose your father, So,dearie, he knows what's best for you,
and it would just break his heartif he thought you were going to
be a common person and not havesomething to show for all his efforts.
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So Sydney came to feel that itwas some wickedness in him that made him
prefer trees and winds and meadows andthe kind cattle to trolley cars and offices,
and people who made little, flatworried jokes all day long. He
barely got through high school. Hissummer vacations he spent in warehouses hoisting boxes.
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He failed to enter medical school,botched his examinations, shockingly, feeling
wicked at betraying his father's ambitions,and his father pushed him into a second
rate dental school with skins eecchy requirements, a school now blessedly out of existence.
Maybe you'd be better as a dentist. Anyway, requires a lot of
manipulation. And I will say you'regood with your hands, his father said,
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in relief that now Sydney was onthe highway to fortune and respectability.
But Sidney's hands, deft with hammerand nails with rains or hoe or spade,
were too big, too awkward forthe delicate operations of dentistry. And
in school he hated the long windedbooks with their queer names and shocking colored
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plates of man's inwards. The workingsof a liver did not interest him.
He had never seen a liver savethat of a slain chicken. He would
turn from these mysteries to a catalogof harvesting machinery or vegetable seed. So
with difficulty he graduated from this doubtfulschool, and he was uneasy at the
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pit of his stomach, even whenhis father, much rejoicing, now bought
for him a com complete dental outfitand rented an office on the new frontier
of the Bronx, in the backpart of a three story red brick apartment
house. His father and mother invitedtheir friends over from Brooklyn to admire the
office and serve them coffee and cake. Not many of them came, which
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was well, for the office wasnot large. It was really a single
room divided by a curtain to makea reception hall. The operating room had
pink calcimined walls and for adornment,Sydney's diploma and a calendar from a dental
supply house which showed, with noapparent appropriateness, a view of Pike's Peak.
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When they had all gone mouthing congratulations, Sydney looked wistfully out on the
old pasture land, which fifteen yearslater was to be filled solidly with tall,
cheap apartment houses and huge avenues withdelicatessen shops and movie palaces. Already
these pastures were doomed and abandoned cow'sHe no longer grazed there. Gaunt billboards
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lined the roads, and behind theirbarricades were unkempt waste lands of ashes and
sodden newspapers. But they were opengrass, and they brought back the valleys
and uplands of Vermont. His greatarms were hungry for the strain of plowing,
and he sighed and turned back tohis shining new kit of tools.
The drill he picked up was absurdagainst his wide red palm. All at
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once, he was certain that heknew no dentistry, and that he never
would, that he would botch everycase, that dreadful things would happen,
suits for malpractice. Actually, asa few and poorly paying neighborhood patients began
to come in, the dreadful thingsdidn't happen. Sydney was slow, but
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he was careful. If he didno ingenious dental jeweling, he did nothing
wrong. He learned early what certaindentists and doctors never learned, That nature
has not yet been entirely supplanted bythe profession. It was not his patience
who suffered. It was he allday long, to have to remain indoors,
to stand in one place, bentover gaping mouths, to fiddle with
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tiny instruments, to produce unctuous soundsof sympathy for cranks who complained of trivial
aches, To try to give briskand confident advice, which was really selling
talk. All this tortured him.Then within one single year, his mother
died, his grandfather died on theVermont farm. Uncle Rob and Uncle Ben
moved west, and Sidney met themost wonderful girl in the world. The
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name of this particular most wonderful girlin the world, who unquestionably had more
softness and enchantment and funny little waysof saying things than Helen of Troy was
Maybel Ellen Flugman, and she wascultured. She loved the theater but rarely
attended it. Loved also the piano, but hadn't time. She explained to
keep up her practice because her father'slife laundry being in a state of debility
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for several years, she had temporarilybeen cashier at the Quiterwerry Lunch. They
furnished a four room apartment and wentto Vermont for their honeymoon. His grandfather's
farm. Sydney wasn't quite sure justwho had bought it was rented out to
what the neighborhood considered foreigners, thatis, Vermonters from way over beyond the
ridge, fifteen miles away. Theytook in Sydney and Maybell. She enjoyed
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it. She told how sick shehad become of the smell and dish clatter
of the old lunch, and thehorrid customers who were always trying to make
love to her. She squealed equallyover mountains and ducklings, sunsets and wild
strawberries, and as for certain inconveniences, washing with a pitcher and bowl,
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sleeping in a low room, smellingof the chicken run, and having supper
in the kitchen with the menfolks inshirt sleeve. She said it was just
too darling for words. It was, in fact sweet. But after ten
days of the fortnight on which theyhad planned, she thought perhaps they had
better get back to New York andmake sure all the furniture had arrived.
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They were happy in marriage. Maybellsaw him and made him see himself as
a man, strong and gallant,but shy and blundering. He needed mothering,
she said, and he got it, and was convinced that he liked
it. He was less gruff withhis patients, and he had many more
of them, for Maybell caused himto be known socially. Till marriage,
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he had lived in a furnished room, and all evening he had prowled alone
or read dentistry journals and seed catalogs. Now Maybell arranged jolly little parties,
beer and Welsh rabbit and a gameof five hundred if. At the Quiter
Worry Lunch, she had met manylight fellows, west farms lotharios. She
had also met estimable but bohemian familiesof the neighborhood, big traveling men whose
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territory took them as far west asDenver, assistant buyers from the downtown department
stores, and the office manager ofa large insurance agency. Maybel a chatelaine
now wanted to shine among them,and wanted Sydney to shine. And he,
feeling a little cramped in a newdouble breasted blue serge coat, solemnly
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served the beer, and sometimes aguest perceived that here was an honest and
solid dentist upon whom to depend.And once they gave a theater party six
seats at a vaudeville house. YetSidney was never when he awoke mornings excited
about the adventure of standing with bentaching shoulders over patients all this glorious coming
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day. They had two children inthree years, and began to worry a
little about the rent bill and thegrocery bill. And Sydney was considerably less
independent, with grumbling patience than hehad been. His broad shoulders had a
small stoop, and he said,quite humbly, well, I'll try my
best to fix m to your satisfaction, Missus Smallberg. And sometimes his thick
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fing tapped nervously on his chin ashe talked, and he envied now where
once he had despised them, certaindental school classmates who knew little of dentistry,
but who were slick dressers and givento verbal chuckings under the chin,
who had made money and opened threeroom offices with chintz chairs in the waiting
room. Sydney still had his oldoffice with no assistant, and the jerry
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Bilt tenement looked a little shabby nowbeside the six story apartment houses of yellow
brick trimmed with marble, which hadsprung up all about it. Then their
children, Rob and Willabet were eightand six years old, and Maybel began
to nag Sydney over the children's lackof clothes as pretty as those of their
lovely little friends at school, andhis dental engine only a treadle affair at
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that was worn out, and hiselbows were always shiny. And in early
autumn his father died. His fatherdied muttering, you've been a good boy,
Sid, and done what I toldyou to. You can understand and
appreciate now why I kept you frombeing just a farmer and gave you a
chance to be a professional man.I don't think Maybel comes from an awful
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good family, but she's a spunkylittle thing and real bright, and she'll
keep you up to snuff. Maybesome day your boy will be a great
rich banker or surgeon. Keep himaway from his Vermont relations, no ambition,
those folks. My chest feels sotight. Bless you, Sid.
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He was his father's sole heir.When the will was read in the shabby
lawyer's office in Brooklyn, he wasastonished to find that his father had still
owned that he himself now owned theancestral Vermont home. His slow burning imagination
lighted. He was touched by thebelief that his father, for all his
pretended hatred of the place, hadcherished it and had wanted his son to
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own it. Not till afterward didhe learn from Uncle Rob that William,
when his own father had died,had as eldest son, been given the
choice of the farm or half themoney in the estate, and had taken
the farm to keep Sydney away fromit. He had been afraid that if
his brothers had it, they wouldwelcome Sidney as a partner before he became
habituated as a dentist. But inhis last days, apparently William felt that
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Sidney was safely civilized now and caughtwith the farm. Sydney inherited some three
thousand dollars, not more for theBrooklyn Home was mortgaged instantly and ecstatically.
While the lawyer drone senseless advice.Sidney decided to go home. The tenant
on his farm his had only twomonths more on his lease. He'd take
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it over. The three thousand dollarswould buy eight cows, well say ten,
with a cream separator, a tractor, a light truck, and served
to put the old buildings into conditionadequate for a few years. He'd do
the repairing himself. He arched hishands with longing for the feel of a
hammer or a crowbar. In thehall outside the lawyer's office. Maybel crowed,
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isn't it, oh, sid Youdo know how sorry I am your
father's pasted on. But won't itbe just lovely? The farm must be
worth four thousand dollars, will bejust as sensible as can be. Not
blow it all in like lots ofpeople would. We'll invest the seven thousand
and that ought to give us threehundred and fifty dollars a year. Think
of it an extra dollar every day. You can get a dress suit now,
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and at last I'll have some decentdresses for the evening, and we'll
get a new suit for Rob rightaway. How soon can you get the
money, did he say? AndI saw some lovely little dresses for Willabette,
and the cutest slippers, And nowwe can get a decent bridge table
instead of that rickety old thing.And as she babbled, which she did
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at length on the stairs down fromthe office, Sydney realized wretchedly that it
was going to take an eloquence farbeyond him to convert her to farming and
the joys of the land. Hewas afraid of her as he had been
of his father. There's a drugstore over across. Let's go over and
have an ice cream soda, hesaid, mildly. Gosh, it's hot
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for September. Up on the farmnow it would be cool, And the
leaves are just beginning to turn.They're awful pretty, all red and yellow.
Oh, you and your old farm. But in her joy she was
amiable. They sat at the brightcolored little table in the drug store,
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with cheery colored drinks between them.But the scene should have been an ancient
castle at midnight, terrible with windand lightning. For suddenly they were not
bright nor cheery, but black withtragedy. There was no mana of use
in trying to cajole her. Shecould never understand how he hated the confinement
of his dental office. She wouldsay, why you get the chance of
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meeting all sorts of nice, interestingpeople while I have to stay home?
And not perceive that. He didnot want to meet nice interesting people.
He wanted silence and the smell ofearth. And he was under her spell
as he had been under his father'sonly violently could he break it. He
spoke softly enough, looking at thegiddy marble of the soda counter, but
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he spoke sternly. Look here,May, this is our chance. You
bet your sweet life, were goingto be sensible and not blow in our
stake. And we're not going toblow it in on a lot of clothes
and a lot of fool bridge parties, for a lot of fool folks that
don't care one red hoot about usexcept what they get out of us.
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For that matter, if we weregoing to stay on in New York,
which we most certainly are, youngman, will you listen to me.
I inherited this dough, not you. Gee. I don't want to be
mean, May, but you gotto listen to reason. And as I'm
saying, if we were going tostay in the city, the first thing
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I'd spend money for would be anew dental engine, an electric one.
Need it like the mischief. Losepatience when they see me pumping that old
one and think I ain't up todate, which I ain't. But that's
no skin off their nose. Eventhe volatile Maybel was silent at the unprecedented
length and vigor of his oration.But we're not going to stay, no,
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sir, We're going back to theold farm, and the kids will
be brought up in the fresh airinstead of a lot of alleys. Go
back and farm it, she explodedthen, and as she spoke, she
looked at him with eyes hot withhatred, the first hatred he had ever
known in her Are you crazy?Go back to that hole, have my
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kids messing around a lot of manureand dirty animals, and out working in
the hay field like a lot ofcattle, and attend a little one room
school with a boob for a teacher, and play with a lot of knit
with brats. Not on your life, They won't. I've got some ambition
for em even if you haven't.Why May I thought you liked Vermont and
(32:28):
the farm. You were crazy aboutit on our honeymoon, and you said
I did not. I hated iteven then. I just said I liked
it to make you happy. Thatstifling little bedroom and kerosene lamps and bugs
and no bathroom, and those foolsof farmers in their shirt sleeves. Oh
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it was fierce. If you go, you go without the kids and me.
I guess I can still earn aliving, and I guess there's still
plenty of other men would like tomarry me when I divorce you. And
I mean it. She did,and Sidney knew she did. He collapsed
as helplessly as he had with hisfather. Well, of course, if
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you can't stand it, he muttered, Well, I'm glad you're beginning to
come to your senses. Honest,I think you were just crazy with the
heat. But listen, here's whatI'll do. I won't kick about your
getting the electric dental doodingis if itdon't cost too much. Now, how
do you go about selling the farm? There began for this silent man a
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secret life of plotting and of lies. Somehow he could not see how he
must persuade her to go to thefarm. Perhaps she would die, But
he was shocked at this thought,for he loved her and believed her to
be the best woman living, asconceivably she may have been. But he
did not obey her and sell thefarm. He lied. He told her
(34:02):
that a Vermont real estate dealer hadwritten that just this autumn there was no
market for farms, but next yearwould be excellent, and the next year
he repeated the lie and rented thefarm to Uncle Rob, who had done
well enough on Iowa Cornland, butwas homesick for the hills and sugar groves
and placid maples of Vermont. Himself. Sidney did not go to the farm.
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It was not permitted. Maybel wasfurious that he had not sold,
that they had only the three thousand, which was never invested for clothes and
bridge prizes and payments on the car, and, after a good deal of
irritated talk his electric dental engine.If he had always been sullenly restless in
his little office, now he wasraging. He felt robbed the little back
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room, the view not even ofwaste land now, but of the center
of a cheap block, and theback of new tenements. The anguish of
patients, which crucified his heavy,unspoken sympathy for them, and that horrible,
unending series of wide stretched mouths andbad molars and tongues. It was
intolerable. He thought of meadows scatteredwith daisies and devil's paint brush, of
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dark healing thundershowers pouring up the longvalley. He must go home to the
land. From the landlord who ownedhis office. He got in the spring,
a year and a half after hisfather's death, the right to garden
a tiny patch amid the litter andcement areaways in the center of the block.
Maybel laughed at him, but hestayed late every evening to cultivate each
(35:37):
inch of his pocket paradise, alarge man with huge feet, setting them
carefully down in a plot ten feetsquare. The earth understood him, as
it does such men. And beforethe Long Island market gardeners had anything to
display, Sydney had a row ofbeautiful radish plants, A dozen radishes wrapped
(35:57):
in a tabloid newspaper. He tookhome one night and he said, vaingloriously
to Maybell, You'll never get anyradishes like these in the market, right
out of our own garden. Sheate one absently. He braced himself to
hear a jeering you and your oldgarden. What he did here was,
in its uncaring still worse. Yes, they're all right. I guess he'd
(36:23):
show her, he'd make her seehim as a great farmer. And with
that ambition he lost every scruple heplotted. And this was the way of
that plotting. Early in July,he said, and casually, well,
now we got the darn car allpaid for, we ought to use it.
(36:44):
Maybe we might take the kids thissummer and make a little tour for
a couple weeks or so. Whereshe sounded suspicious, and in his newborn
guile, he droned, Oh,wherever you'd like, I hear it's nice
up around Niagara Falls and the GreatLakes. Maybe come back by way of
(37:05):
Pennsylvania and see Valley Forge and allthem famous historical sites. Well, yes,
perhaps the Golhams made a tour lastsummer, and they make me sick.
They never stopped talking about it.They went, and maybel enjoyed it.
She was, by no means alwaysa nagger and an improver. She
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was so only when her interests,or what she deemed the interests of her
children, were threatened. She madejokes about the towns through which they passed.
Any community of less than fifty thousandwas to her New Yorkism a hick
hole, and she even sang jazzand admired his driving, which was bad.
They had headed north up the Hudson. At Glen's Falls. He took
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the highway to the right instead ofleft toward the Great Lakes, and she,
the city girl, the urban rusticto whom the only directions that meant
anything were east side and west sideas applied to New York, did not
notice, and she was still unsuspiciouswhen he grumbled, looks to me like
I'd taken the wrong road. Stoppingat a filling station, he demanded,
(38:12):
how far is it to Lake George? We ought to be there now,
Well, stranger way you're headed,it'll be about twenty five thousand miles.
You're going plumb in the wrong direction. I'll be darned. Where are we
didn't notice the name of the lasttown we went through. You're about a
(38:35):
mile from fair Haven, Vermont,Yep. Well, I'll be darned.
Just think of that. Can't evenbe trusted to stay in one state and
not skid across the borderline. Maybellwas looking suspicious, and he said,
with desperate gaiety, say, doyou know what, may We're only forty
(39:00):
miles from our farm. Let's gohave a look at it. Maybell made
a sound of protest, but heturned to the children in the back seat,
amid a mess of suit cases andtools and a jack and spare inner
tubes and gloated. Wouldn't you kidslike to see the farm where I worked
as a kid, where your grandfatherand great grandfather were born, and see
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your grand uncle Rob, and seeall the little chicks and so on.
Oh? Yes, they shrilled togetherwith that enthusiasm from her beloved young,
with the smart and uniformed young fillingstation attendant listening, Maybell's talent for being
righteous and indignant was gagged appearances,She said lightly to the filling station man.
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The doctor just doesn't seem to beable to keep the road at all,
does he? Well, doctor,shall we get started? Even when
they had gone on and were aloneand ready for a little sound domestic quarreling,
she merely croaked just the same,it seems mighty queer to me.
And after another mile of brooding,while Sydney drove silently and prayed awfully queer,
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but he scarcely heard her. Hewas speculating without in the least putting
it into words. I wonder ifin the early summer evenings the fireflies still
dart above the meadows. I wonderif the full moon, before it rises
behind the hemlocks and sugar maples alongthe ridge still casts up a prophetic glory.
(40:31):
I wonder if sleepy dogs still barkacross the valley. I wonder if
the night breeze slips through the mowingI who have for fortress and self respect
only a stuffy office room. Iwonder if there are still valleys and stars
and the quiet night. Or wasthat all only the dream of youth?
(40:51):
They slept at Rutland Sidney, allimpatient of the sidified hotel bedroom. It
was at ten in the morning hedrove in twenty minutes the distance which thirty
years ago had taken Uncle Rob.An hour and a half that he drove
up to the White House, wheresince eighteen hundred the Daus had been born.
He could see Uncle Rob with thehay ache in the south, mowing
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sedately, driving the old team andignoring the visitors. I guess he probably
thinks were bootleggers, chuckled Sydney.Come on, you kids, here's where
your old daddy worked all one summer. Let's go thirsty. Say I'll give
you a drink of real spring water, not none of this chlorinated city stuff,
(41:36):
and we'll see the menagerie. Beforehe had finished, Rob and Willabette
had slipped over the rear doors ofthe car and were looking down into the
valley with little sounds of excitement.Sidney whisked out almost as quickly as they
while Maybell climbed down with the dignitysuitable to a dweller in the bronx.
He ignored her. He clucked hischildren round the house to the spring fed
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well and pumped a bucket of water. Oh it's so cold, daddy,
it's swell, said Rob. Youbet your life, it's cold and swell.
Say don't use words like swell,they're common. But hell with that.
(42:21):
Come on, you brats, I'llshow you something. There were kittens
and two old, grave, courteouscats. There was a calf heaven nosed
by how many generations it was descendedfrom the calf that, on a June
morning, when Sidney was sixteen,had licked his fingers. There were ducklings
(42:42):
and young turkeys with feathers grotesquely scatteredover their skins like palm trees in a
desert, and unexpected more kittens,and an old brown and white tail wagging
dog, and a pen of excitedlittle pigs. The children squealed over all
of them until Maybell caught up coughinga little. Well, she said,
(43:02):
the kits are kind of cute,ain't they? Then darkly, now that
you've got me here, Sid withyour plans and all, Uncle Rob crept
up, snarling what you folks want? By gracious? If it ain't sid
this your wife and children? Well, sir, it was. Sidney felt
(43:25):
the climax of his plot, andhe cried to his son Rob, this
is your grand uncle that you werenamed for. How'd you like to stay
here on the farm instead of inNew York? Hot dog, I'd love
it. Them kittens and the lillducks. Oh they're the berries, you
(43:47):
bet. I'd like to stay.Oh, I'd love it, gurgled his
sister. You would not, snappedMabel. With no bathroom, we could
put one in, growled Sydney.On what on all the money you'd make
growing orchids and bananas? Here?I guess you kids? How'd you like
(44:10):
to walk two miles to school throughthe snow in winter? Oh? That
would be slick. Maybe we couldkill a deer, said young Rob.
Yes, and maybe a field mousecould kill you, you dumb bell.
Sure lovely all evening with not adog gone thing to do? After supper,
(44:35):
Why we'd go to the movies?Do you go to the movies often?
Grand Uncle Rob well afraid in winteryou wouldn't get to go to the
movies at all. Pretty far intotown hesitated, Uncle Rob, not go
to the movies, screamed The citychildren incredulous. It was the most terrible
(44:57):
thing they had ever heard of.Rob Junior mourned, Oh, g,
that wouldn't be so good. Sayhow do the Hicks learn anything if they
don't go to the movies. Butstill we could go in the summer,
ma, and in the winter itwould be elegant, with sliding and hunting
in everything. I'd love it.Maybell cooked supper, banging the pans a
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good deal and emitting opinions of ahouse that had no porcelain sink, no
water taps, no refrigerator, nogas or electricity. She was silent through
supper, silent as Sydney, silentas Uncle Rob. But Sidney was exultant
with the children for allies he wouldwin, and the children themselves they were
(45:44):
hysterical until Maybell screamed for annoyance.They leaped up from the table to come
back with the most unspeakable and Unbronxianobjects. A cat affectionately carried by his
hind leg, but squealing with misunderstandingof the affection. A dead mole,
an unwiped oil can, a muckcovered spade. But mother, they protested,
(46:07):
in the city you never find anythingexcept maybe a dead lemon. She
shewed them off to bed at eight, herself sniffily. She disappeared at nine,
muttering to Sydney, I hope youand your boyfriend Uncle Rob chew the
rag all night and get it outof your systems. He was startled,
for indeed, the next step ofhis plot did concern Uncle rob and secret
(46:30):
parleys. For half an hour hewalked the road, almost frightened by the
intensity of stillness. He could fancycatamounts in the birch clumps, but between
spasms of skittish city nerves. Hestretched out, his arms, arched back,
his hands breathed consciously. This wasnot just air necessary meat for the
(46:52):
lungs. It was a spirit thatfilled him. He knew that he must
not tarry after nine thirty for hisintrigue with Uncle rob U. Uncle Rob
was seventy five and in seventy fivetimes three hundred and sixty five evenings.
He had doubtless stayed up later thannine thirty o'clock several times, dancing with
the little French Canuck girls at PotsdamForge as a young man sitting up with
(47:15):
a sick cow since then, orstuck in the mud on his way back
from Sunday evening meeting. But thosefew times were epical. Uncle Rob did
not hold with Roistering in staying uptill all hours just for the vanities of
the flesh. Sidney crept up thestairs to Uncle Rob's room. Maybelle and
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Sydney had the best bedroom on theground floor, Long Rob and Bet had
Grandpa's room on the second. UncleRob lived in the attic. Sidy folks
might have wondered why Uncle Rob,tenant and controller of the place, should
have hidden in the attic with threegood bedrooms below him. It was simple.
Uncle Rob had always lived there sincehe was a boy. Up the
(48:00):
narrow stairs steep as a rock face, Sydney crept and knocked, who's there?
A sharp voice, a bit uneasy? How many years was it since
Uncle Rob had heard any one knockat his bedroom door? It's me Rob,
sid Oh, well, well,guess you can come in wait LLL
(48:22):
I unlock the door. Sydney enteredhis uncle's room for the first time in
his life. The Hill people,anywhere in the world do not intrude or
encourage intrusion. Perhaps to fastidious andalien persons, Uncle Rob's room would have
seemed unlovely. It was lighted bya kerosene lamp, smoking a little with
(48:45):
the wick burned down. On oneside. There was for furniture only a
camp caught with a kitchen chair,a washstand, and a bureau. But
to make up for this paucity,the room was rather littered. On the
washstand beside a pitcher dry from longdisuse, there were a mail order catalog,
(49:05):
a few packets of seed, alone overshoe, a ball of twine,
a bottle of applejack, and aSpanish wore veterans metal. The walls
and ceiling were of plaster, soold that they showed in black lines the
edges of every lath. And Sidneyliked it, like the simplicity, liked
the freedom from neatness and order anddisplay, liked and envied the old bock
(49:27):
quality of it all. Uncle Rob, lying on the bed, had prepared
for slumber by removing his shoes andouter clothing. He blinked at Sydney's amazing
intrusion, but he said amiably enough. Well, boy, Uncle Rob can't
tell you how glad I am tobe back at the old place. Hum.
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Look, I golly, I feelskittish as a young colt hardly know
the old dock. My patience wouldn'tRob, You got to help me,
Maybell don't want to stay here andfarm. It may be me and you
partners, eh, but the kidsand I are crazy too. How I
hate that old city. So dothe kids? Yeah, sure they do.
(50:16):
Didn't you hear how they said theywouldn't mind tramping to school and not
having any movies? Sid, Maybeyou'll understand kids when you get to be
a granddad. Kids will always agreewith anything that sounds exciting. Rob thinks
it would be dandy to hoof ittwo miles through the snow to school.
(50:37):
He won't not once he's done it. Uncle Rob thrust his hands behind his
skinny, bark, brown old neckon the maculate pillow he was making perhaps
the longest oration of his life.The light flickered, and a spider moved
indignantly in its web in a corner. No, said Uncle Rob. He
(50:59):
won't like it. I never did, and the schoolmaster used to lick me.
I hated it crawling through that snowand then get licked because you're late.
And Jiminy haven thought of it forthirty years, I guess maybe forty.
But I remember how some big fellowwould dare you to put your tongue
to your lunch pale and it wasmaybe thirty below and your tongue stuck to
(51:21):
it and it took the hide rightoff. No, I never liked any
of it, especially chores. Rob, Listen, I'm serious. The kids
will maybe kind of find it hardat first, but they'll get to like
it, and they'll grow up realfolks and not city SAPs. It'll be
all right with them. I'll seeto that. It's Maybel, listen,
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Rob, I've got a swell ideaabout her, and I want you to
help me. You get hold ofthe ladies of the township, the Grange
members and the Methodist ladies, andlike that. You tell m Maybel is
a swell city girl, and itwould be dandy for the neighborhood if they
could get her to stay here.She's grand, but she does kind of
(52:07):
fall for flattery, and in thebronx she ain't so important. And if
these ladies came and told her theythought she was the cat's pajamas, maybe
she'd fall for it. And thenI guess maybe she might stay. If
the ladies came, they wouldn't.Uncle Rob had been rubbing his long and
prickly chin and curling his toes inhis gray socks. What do you mean,
(52:31):
well, first place, the ladiesround here would be on to your
Maybell. They ain't so backwards asthey was in your time. Take missus
Craig. Last three winters her andher husband Frank have packed up the fliver
and gone to Florida. But thatain't it? Fact? Is Sid?
(52:52):
I kind of sympathize with Maybell.What do you mean well? I never
was strong for farming hard life.Sid always thought I'd like to keep store
or something in the city. Youforget how hard the work is here,
you with your easy job, justfilling a few teeth. No, I
(53:15):
can't help you, Sid, Isee all right, Sorry for disturbing you.
As he crept downstairs in bewilderment,Sydney prayed, he who so rarely
prayed, O Lord doesn't anybody butme love the land anymore? What is
going to happen to us? Whyall our life comes from the land.
(53:38):
He knew that in the morning hewould beg Mabel to stay for a fortnight,
and that she would not stay.It was his last night here,
so all night long, slow andsilent, he walked the country roads,
looking at hemlock branches against the sky, solemnly shaking his head and wondering why
he could never rid himself of thissinfulness of longing for the why he could
(54:00):
never be grown up and ambitious andworthy like his father and Maybelle and Uncle Rob
Sinclair, lewis Land. He wasnamed Sydney for the sake of elegance,
just as his parents had for elegancein their Brooklyn parlor, a golden oak
combination bookcase, desk and shield shapedmirror. But Sidney Dow was descended from
generations of George and John's, ofLorentz and Luke's and Nathan's. He was
(00:24):
little esteemed in the slick bustle ofhis city school. He seemed a loudish
boy, tall and heavy and slowspoken, and he was a worry to
his father, For William Dow wasan ambitious parent. Born on a Vermont
farm, William felt joyously that hehad done well in the great city of
Brooklyn. He had in eighteen eightyfive when Sydney was born, a real
(00:48):
bathroom with a fine tin tub,gas lights, and a handsome phaeton with
red wheels instead of the wash tubin the kitchen for Saturday night baths,
the kerosene lamps, and the heavyold buggy which his father still used in
Vermont. Instead of being up atfive thirty, he could lull abed till
a quarter of seven, and healmost never he chuckled in gratification at his
(01:10):
progress was in his office before aquarter to eight. But the luxury of
a red wheeled carriage in late Lynedid not indicate that William's yankee shrewdness had
been cousined by urban wece, orthat he was any less solid and respectable
than Old George, his own father. He was a deacon in the Universalist
Church. He still said grace beforemeals, and he went to the theater
(01:34):
only when ben hur was appearing.For his son, Sidney, William Dow
had even larger ambitions. William himselfhad never gone to high school, and
his business was only a cautious realestate and insurance agency. His home a
squatting two story brick house in ared, monotonous row. But Sidney,
(01:55):
he should go to college. Heshould be a doctor, or a preacher,
or a lawyer. He should travelin Europe. He should live in
a three story greystone house in theforties in Manhattan. He should have a
dress suit and wear it to respectablebut expensive hops. William had once worn
dress clothes at an odd fellow's ball, but they had been rented to enable
(02:17):
Sydney to attain all these graces.William toiled and sacrificed and prayed. American
fathers have always been as extraordinary asScotch fathers in their heroic ambitions for their
sons, and sometimes as unscrupulous andas unwise. It bruised William, and
often it made him naggingly unkind tosee that Sydney, the big slug,
(02:38):
did not appreciate how his parents weretrying to do for him and give him
every opportunity. When they had acelebrated Columbia Heights physician as guest for dinner,
Sydney merely gawked at him and didnot at all try to make an
impression. Suffering cats, you mighthave been one of your uncles, still
puttering around with dirty picks back onthe farm. What are you going to
(03:02):
do with yourself anyway, raged William. I guess maybe I'd like to be
a truck driver, mumbled Sydney.Yet even so William should not have whipped
him. It only made him sulkierto Sidney Dow At sixteen his eagerest memories
(03:23):
were of occasional weeks he had spentwith his grandfather and uncles on the Vermont
farm, and the last of thesewas seven years back. Now he remembered
Vermont as an enchanted place with curiousand amusing animals cows, horses, turkeys.
He wanted to return, but hisfather seemed to hate the place of
(03:44):
Brooklyn. Sydney liked nothing save liverystables and occasional agreeable gang fights with stones
inside iceed snowballs. He hated school, where he had to cramp his big
knees under trifling desks, where irritablelady teachers tried to make him see the
imp hortans of a's going more rapidlythan b to the town of X,
a town in which he was evenless interested than in Brooklyn school, where
(04:06):
hour on hour he looked over thetop of his geography and stolidly hated the
whiskers of Longfellow, Lowell, andWhittier. He hated the stiff, clean
collar and the itchy clean winter underwearconnected with Sunday school. He hated hot
evenings smelling of tarry pavements, andcold evenings when the pavements were slippery.
(04:29):
But he didn't know that he hatedany of these things. He knew only
that his father must be right insaying that he was a bad, disobedient
ungrateful young whelp, and in hisheart he was as humble as in his
speech he was sullen. Then,at sixteen, he came to life suddenly
on an early June morning on hisgrandfather's farm. His father had sent him
(04:51):
up to Vermont for the summer,had indeed exiled him, saying grimly,
I guess after you live in thattumble down big old shack, can work
in the fields and have to getup early instead of lying abed till your
majesty is good and ready to havethe girl wait on you. I guess
that next fall you'll appreciate your nicehome and school and church. Here,
(05:13):
young man, so sure of himselfwas his father that Sidney was convinced he
was going to encounter hardship on thefarm. And all the way up in
the smarting air of the smoker onthe slow train, he wanted to howl.
The train arrived at ten in theevening, and he was met by
his uncle Rob, a man ruggedas a pine trunk and about as articulate.
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Well come for the summer, saidUncle Rob. And after they had
driven three miles, got new Kafyanew calf, and after a mile more,
your pa all right, and thatwas all the conversation of Uncle Rob.
Seven years. It was since Sydneyhad been in any country wilder than
(05:55):
far Rockaway, and the silent hillsof night intimidated him. It was a
roaring silence, a silence full ofstifled threats. The hills that cut the
stars so high up on either sidethe road seemed walls that would topple and
crush him as a man would crusha mosquito between his two palms. And
(06:15):
once he cried out when in themilky light from the lantern swung beneath the
wagon, he saw a porcupine lurchinto the road before them. It was
dark, chill, unfriendly, andto the boy reared to the lights and
cheery voices of the city, eventhough he hated them, it was appallingly
lonely. His grandfather's house was dark. When they arrived. Uncle Rob drove
(06:39):
into the barn, jerked his thumbat a ladder up to the haymow,
and muttered, a sleep up there, not aloud. Tea smoke. Take
this lantern when we've unharnessed, sureto put it out. No smoking in
the barn. Too tired to help, too tired. Sidney would have been
(07:00):
glad to work till daylight if UncleRob would but stay with him. He
was in a panic at the thoughtof being left in the ghostly barn ware.
Behind the pawing of horses and thenibble of awakened cows, there were
the sounds of anonymous wild animal scratchings, squeaks, patterings overhead. He made
the task as slow as possible,though actually he was handy with horses,
(07:23):
for the livery stables of Brooklyn hadbeen his favorite refuge, and he had
often been permitted to help the hostlersquite free ge Uncle Rob, I guess
I'm kind of all thumbs about unharnessingand like that seven years since I've been
here on the farm. That sogood night. Careful of that lantern now,
(07:46):
and no smoking. The barn wasblank as a blind face. The
lantern was flickering, and in thatwitching light, the stalls and the heap
of sleighs plows old harness at theback wall of the barn were immense and
terrifying. The barn was larger thanhis whole house in Brooklyn, and ten
(08:07):
times as large, it seemed.In the dimness he could not see clear
to the back wall, and heimagined abominable monsters lurking there. He dashed
at the ladder up to the haymow, the lantern handle in his teeth and
his imitation leather satchel in one hand, and the hay mow rising to the
darkness of its hand. Hewn raftersseemed vaster and more intimidating than the space
(08:31):
below. In one corner, aspace had been cleared of hay for a
cot with a blanket and a peagreen comforter, and for a chair and
a hinged box. Sidney dashed atthe cot and crawled into it, waiting
only to take off his shoes andjacket till the lantern flame died down to
a red rim of charred wick.He kept it alight. Then utter darkness
(08:54):
leaped upon him. A rooster crowed, and he startled past him. Things
scampered and chittered. The darkness seemedto swing in swift eddies under the rafters.
The smell of dry hay choked him, and he awoke to light slipping
in silver darts through cracks in theroof, and to jubilant barn swallows diving
(09:15):
and twittering gee I must have fellasleep, he thought. He went down
the ladder, and now first hesaw the barn. Like many people,
slow of thought and doubtful of speech, Sydney Dow had moments of revelation as
complete as those of a prophet.When he beheld a scene, or a
person, or a problem in itsentirety, with none of the confusing thoughts
(09:39):
of glibber and more clever people,with their minds forever running off on many
tracks. He saw the barn,really saw it, instead of merely glancing
at it like a normal city boy. He saw that the beams, hand
hewn gray with sixty years, werebeautiful. That the sides of the stalls
polish with rubbing by the shoulders ofcattle dead these fifty years were beautiful.
(10:03):
That the harrow, with its trimspikes kept sharp and rustless, was beautiful.
That most beautiful of all were theanimals, cows and horses, chickens
that walked with bobbing heads through thestraw, and a calf tethered to the
wall. The calf cappered with alarmas he approached it, then stood considering
him with great eyes, letting himstroke its head, And at last Licking
(10:26):
his hand, he slouched to thedoor of the barn and looked down the
valley. More radiant in that earlymorning light than even the mountain tops covered
with maples and hemlock were the uplandclearings with white houses and red barns.
Gosh, it looks nice. Itsits sort of it looks nice. I
(10:46):
didn't hardly get it when I washere before. But gee, with all
the scorn of sixteen, I wasjust a kid. Then. With Uncle
Rob he drove the cows to pasture. With Uncle Ben he plowed. With
his grandfather, sourly philanthropic behind hisbeard, he split wood. He found
an even greater menagerie than in thebarn, turkeys, geese, ducks,
(11:09):
pigs, and in the woods andmowings an exciting remnant of woodchucks, chipmunks,
rabbits and infrequent deer. With allof the munkels and grandfather beasts wild
or tame, he felt at home. They did not expect him to chatter
and show off, as had hisgang in Brooklyn. They accepted him that,
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perhaps more than any ancestral stoutness,more than the beauty of the land,
made a farmer of him. Hewas a natural hermit, and here
he could be a hermit without seemingqueer. And a good farmer. He
was slow, but tireless, patient, unannoyed by the endless work, happy
to go to bed early and beup at dawn. For a few days
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his back felt as though he wereburning at the stake. But after that
he could lift all day in thehay field, or swing the sun,
or drive the frisky young team.He was a good farmer, and he
slept at night. The noises whichon his first night had fretted his city
tortured nerves were so prific now,And when he heard the sound of a
distant train, the barking of adog on the next farm, he inarticulately
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told himself that they were lovely.You're pretty fair at working, said Uncle
Rob, And that was praise,almost hysterical. Indeed, in one aspect
of labor, Sydney was better thanany of them, even the pine carved
Uncle Rob. He could endure wetdawns, wild winds, all day,
(12:37):
drenching. It seems to be truethat farmers are more upset by bad weather
than most outdoor workers, sailors,postmen, carpenters, brake men teamsters.
Perhaps it is because they are lesssubject to higher authority except for chores and
getting in the hay. They canmore nearly do things in their own time,
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and they build up a habit oftea making shelter on nasty days.
Whether or no, it was truethat just the city crises that had vexed
Sydney, from icy pavements to suddenfire alarms, had given him the ability
to stand discomforts and the unexpected,like a little Cockney. Surprisingly stolid in
the trenches, he learned the silenthumor of the authentic Yankee evenings. He
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sat with neighbors on the bench beforethe general store to a passing stranger.
They seemed to be saying nothing,but when the stranger had passed, Uncle
Rob would drawl, well, ifI had flying nets on my hosses,
guess I'd look stuck up too,and the others would chuckle with contempt at
the alien. This thought Sydney wasgood talk, not like the smart gabble
(13:45):
of the city. It was allbeautiful, and he knew it, though
in his vocabulary there was no suchword as beautiful. And when he saw
the most flamboyant sunset, he said, only guess going to be clear tomorrow.
And so so he went back toBrooklyn, not as to his home,
but as to prison, and asa prison corridor. He saw the
narrow street with little houses like littlecells. Five minutes after he had entered
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the house, his father laughed,well, did you get enough of farming?
I guess you'll appreciate your school now. I won't rub it in,
but I swear how Rob and Bencan stand it. I kind of liked
it, Dad, I think I'llbe a farmer. I kind of liked
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it. His father had black sidewhiskers, and between them he had thin
cheeks that seemed after Uncle Rob andUncle Ben pallid as the underside of a
toadstool. They flushed now and Williamshouted, you're an idiot. What have
I done to have a son whois an idiot? The way I've striven
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and worked and economized to give youa chance to get ahead, to do
something worth while? And then youwant to slip right back and be ordinary
like your uncle's. So you thinkyou'd like it, You're a fool.
Sure you like it in summer,but if you knew it like I do,
roust it out to do the choresfive o'clock of a January morning,
twenty below zero, and maybe haveto dig through two feet of snow to
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get to the barn, have totramp down to the store, snowstorm so
thick you can't see five feet infront of you. I don't guess i'd
mind it much. Oh you don't. Don't be a fool. And no
nice company like here, go tobed with the chickens a winter night,
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and no nice lodge meeting or churchsupper or lectures like there is here.
Don't care so much for those things. Everybody talking all the while. I
like it quiet like in the country. Well, you will care so much
for those things, or I'll carryyou, my fine young man. I'm
(16:00):
not going to let you slump backinto being a rube like Ben, And
don't you forget it. I'll makeyou work at your books. I'll make
you learn to appreciate good society anddressing proper and getting ahead in the world
and amounting to something, yes,sir, amounting to something. Do you
think for one moment that after thestruggle I've gone through to give you a
(16:22):
chance. The way I studied ina country school and earned my way through
business college, and went to workat five dollars a week in a real
estate office, and studied and economizedand worked late so I could give you
this nice house and advantages and opportunity. No, sir, you're going to
be a lawyer or a doctor,or somebody that amounts to something, and
(16:44):
not a rube. It would havebeen too much to expect of Sidney's imagination
that he should have seen anything fineand pathetic in William's fierce ambition. That
did not move him, but ratherfear he could have broken his father int
two. But the passion in thisblenched, filing case of a man was
such that it hypnotized him for days. Miserably returned to high school. He
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longed for the farm, but hismother took him aside and begged, you
mustn't oppose your father, So,dearie, he knows what's best for you,
and it would just break his heartif he thought you were going to
be a common person and not havesomething to show for all his efforts.
(17:29):
So Sydney came to feel that itwas some wickedness in him that made him
prefer trees and winds and meadows andthe kind cattle to trolley cars and offices,
and people who made little, flatworried jokes all day long. He
barely got through high school. Hissummer vacations he spent in warehouses hoisting boxes.
(17:49):
He failed to enter medical school,botched his examinations, shockingly, feeling
wicked at betraying his father's ambitions,and his father pushed him into a second
rate dental school with skins eecchy requirements, a school now blessedly out of existence.
Maybe you'd be better as a dentist. Anyway, requires a lot of
manipulation. And I will say you'regood with your hands, his father said,
(18:12):
in relief that now Sydney was onthe highway to fortune and respectability.
But Sidney's hands, deft with hammerand nails with rains or hoe or spade,
were too big, too awkward forthe delicate operations of dentistry. And
in school he hated the long windedbooks with their queer names and shocking colored
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plates of man's inwards. The workingsof a liver did not interest him.
He had never seen a liver savethat of a slain chicken. He would
turn from these mysteries to a catalogof harvesting machinery or vegetable seed. So
with difficulty he graduated from this doubtfulschool, and he was uneasy at the
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pit of his stomach, even whenhis father, much rejoicing, now bought
for him a com complete dental outfitand rented an office on the new frontier
of the Bronx, in the backpart of a three story red brick apartment
house. His father and mother invitedtheir friends over from Brooklyn to admire the
office and serve them coffee and cake. Not many of them came, which
(19:18):
was well, for the office wasnot large. It was really a single
room divided by a curtain to makea reception hall. The operating room had
pink calcimined walls and for adornment,Sydney's diploma and a calendar from a dental
supply house which showed, with noapparent appropriateness, a view of Pike's Peak.
(19:40):
When they had all gone mouthing congratulations, Sydney looked wistfully out on the
old pasture land, which fifteen yearslater was to be filled solidly with tall,
cheap apartment houses and huge avenues withdelicatessen shops and movie palaces. Already
these pastures were doomed and abandoned cow'sHe no longer grazed there. Gaunt billboards
(20:03):
lined the roads, and behind theirbarricades were unkempt waste lands of ashes and
sodden newspapers. But they were opengrass, and they brought back the valleys
and uplands of Vermont. His greatarms were hungry for the strain of plowing,
and he sighed and turned back tohis shining new kit of tools.
The drill he picked up was absurdagainst his wide red palm. All at
(20:27):
once, he was certain that heknew no dentistry, and that he never
would, that he would botch everycase, that dreadful things would happen,
suits for malpractice. Actually, asa few and poorly paying neighborhood patients began
to come in, the dreadful thingsdidn't happen. Sydney was slow, but
(20:47):
he was careful. If he didno ingenious dental jeweling, he did nothing
wrong. He learned early what certaindentists and doctors never learned, That nature
has not yet been entirely supplanted bythe profession. It was not his patience
who suffered. It was he allday long, to have to remain indoors,
to stand in one place, bentover gaping mouths, to fiddle with
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tiny instruments, to produce unctuous soundsof sympathy for cranks who complained of trivial
aches, To try to give briskand confident advice, which was really selling
talk. All this tortured him.Then within one single year, his mother
died, his grandfather died on theVermont farm. Uncle Rob and Uncle Ben
moved west, and Sidney met themost wonderful girl in the world. The
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name of this particular most wonderful girlin the world, who unquestionably had more
softness and enchantment and funny little waysof saying things than Helen of Troy was
Maybel Ellen Flugman, and she wascultured. She loved the theater but rarely
attended it. Loved also the piano, but hadn't time. She explained to
keep up her practice because her father'slife laundry being in a state of debility
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for several years, she had temporarilybeen cashier at the Quiterwerry Lunch. They
furnished a four room apartment and wentto Vermont for their honeymoon. His grandfather's
farm. Sydney wasn't quite sure justwho had bought it was rented out to
what the neighborhood considered foreigners, thatis, Vermonters from way over beyond the
ridge, fifteen miles away. Theytook in Sydney and Maybell. She enjoyed
(22:27):
it. She told how sick shehad become of the smell and dish clatter
of the old lunch, and thehorrid customers who were always trying to make
love to her. She squealed equallyover mountains and ducklings, sunsets and wild
strawberries, and as for certain inconveniences, washing with a pitcher and bowl,
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sleeping in a low room, smellingof the chicken run, and having supper
in the kitchen with the menfolks inshirt sleeve. She said it was just
too darling for words. It was, in fact sweet. But after ten
days of the fortnight on which theyhad planned, she thought perhaps they had
better get back to New York andmake sure all the furniture had arrived.
(23:07):
They were happy in marriage. Maybellsaw him and made him see himself as
a man, strong and gallant,but shy and blundering. He needed mothering,
she said, and he got it, and was convinced that he liked
it. He was less gruff withhis patients, and he had many more
of them, for Maybell caused himto be known socially. Till marriage,
(23:30):
he had lived in a furnished room, and all evening he had prowled alone
or read dentistry journals and seed catalogs. Now Maybell arranged jolly little parties,
beer and Welsh rabbit and a gameof five hundred if. At the Quiter
Worry Lunch, she had met manylight fellows, west farms lotharios. She
had also met estimable but bohemian familiesof the neighborhood, big traveling men whose
(23:53):
territory took them as far west asDenver, assistant buyers from the downtown department
stores, and the office manager ofa large insurance agency. Maybel a chatelaine
now wanted to shine among them,and wanted Sydney to shine. And he,
feeling a little cramped in a newdouble breasted blue serge coat, solemnly
(24:15):
served the beer, and sometimes aguest perceived that here was an honest and
solid dentist upon whom to depend.And once they gave a theater party six
seats at a vaudeville house. YetSidney was never when he awoke mornings excited
about the adventure of standing with bentaching shoulders over patients all this glorious coming
(24:37):
day. They had two children inthree years, and began to worry a
little about the rent bill and thegrocery bill. And Sydney was considerably less
independent, with grumbling patience than hehad been. His broad shoulders had a
small stoop, and he said,quite humbly, well, I'll try my
best to fix m to your satisfaction, Missus Smallberg. And sometimes his thick
(24:59):
fing tapped nervously on his chin ashe talked, and he envied now where
once he had despised them, certaindental school classmates who knew little of dentistry,
but who were slick dressers and givento verbal chuckings under the chin,
who had made money and opened threeroom offices with chintz chairs in the waiting
room. Sydney still had his oldoffice with no assistant, and the jerry
(25:25):
Bilt tenement looked a little shabby nowbeside the six story apartment houses of yellow
brick trimmed with marble, which hadsprung up all about it. Then their
children, Rob and Willabet were eightand six years old, and Maybel began
to nag Sydney over the children's lackof clothes as pretty as those of their
lovely little friends at school, andhis dental engine only a treadle affair at
(25:49):
that was worn out, and hiselbows were always shiny. And in early
autumn his father died. His fatherdied muttering, you've been a good boy,
Sid, and done what I toldyou to. You can understand and
appreciate now why I kept you frombeing just a farmer and gave you a
chance to be a professional man.I don't think Maybel comes from an awful
(26:12):
good family, but she's a spunkylittle thing and real bright, and she'll
keep you up to snuff. Maybesome day your boy will be a great
rich banker or surgeon. Keep himaway from his Vermont relations, no ambition,
those folks. My chest feels sotight. Bless you, Sid.
(26:36):
He was his father's sole heir.When the will was read in the shabby
lawyer's office in Brooklyn, he wasastonished to find that his father had still
owned that he himself now owned theancestral Vermont home. His slow burning imagination
lighted. He was touched by thebelief that his father, for all his
pretended hatred of the place, hadcherished it and had wanted his son to
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own it. Not till afterward didhe learn from Uncle Rob that William,
when his own father had died,had as eldest son, been given the
choice of the farm or half themoney in the estate, and had taken
the farm to keep Sydney away fromit. He had been afraid that if
his brothers had it, they wouldwelcome Sidney as a partner before he became
habituated as a dentist. But inhis last days, apparently William felt that
(27:25):
Sidney was safely civilized now and caughtwith the farm. Sydney inherited some three
thousand dollars, not more for theBrooklyn Home was mortgaged instantly and ecstatically.
While the lawyer drone senseless advice.Sidney decided to go home. The tenant
on his farm his had only twomonths more on his lease. He'd take
(27:48):
it over. The three thousand dollarswould buy eight cows, well say ten,
with a cream separator, a tractor, a light truck, and served
to put the old buildings into conditionadequate for a few years. He'd do
the repairing himself. He arched hishands with longing for the feel of a
hammer or a crowbar. In thehall outside the lawyer's office. Maybel crowed,
(28:14):
isn't it, oh, sid Youdo know how sorry I am your
father's pasted on. But won't itbe just lovely? The farm must be
worth four thousand dollars, will bejust as sensible as can be. Not
blow it all in like lots ofpeople would. We'll invest the seven thousand
and that ought to give us threehundred and fifty dollars a year. Think
of it an extra dollar every day. You can get a dress suit now,
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and at last I'll have some decentdresses for the evening, and we'll
get a new suit for Rob rightaway. How soon can you get the
money, did he say? AndI saw some lovely little dresses for Willabette,
and the cutest slippers, And nowwe can get a decent bridge table
instead of that rickety old thing.And as she babbled, which she did
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at length on the stairs down fromthe office, Sydney realized wretchedly that it
was going to take an eloquence farbeyond him to convert her to farming and
the joys of the land. Hewas afraid of her as he had been
of his father. There's a drugstore over across. Let's go over and
have an ice cream soda, hesaid, mildly. Gosh, it's hot
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for September. Up on the farmnow it would be cool, And the
leaves are just beginning to turn.They're awful pretty, all red and yellow.
Oh, you and your old farm. But in her joy she was
amiable. They sat at the brightcolored little table in the drug store,
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with cheery colored drinks between them.But the scene should have been an ancient
castle at midnight, terrible with windand lightning. For suddenly they were not
bright nor cheery, but black withtragedy. There was no mana of use
in trying to cajole her. Shecould never understand how he hated the confinement
of his dental office. She wouldsay, why you get the chance of
(30:11):
meeting all sorts of nice, interestingpeople while I have to stay home?
And not perceive that. He didnot want to meet nice interesting people.
He wanted silence and the smell ofearth. And he was under her spell
as he had been under his father'sonly violently could he break it. He
spoke softly enough, looking at thegiddy marble of the soda counter, but
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he spoke sternly. Look here,May, this is our chance. You
bet your sweet life, were goingto be sensible and not blow in our
stake. And we're not going toblow it in on a lot of clothes
and a lot of fool bridge parties, for a lot of fool folks that
don't care one red hoot about usexcept what they get out of us.
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For that matter, if we weregoing to stay on in New York,
which we most certainly are, youngman, will you listen to me.
I inherited this dough, not you. Gee. I don't want to be
mean, May, but you gotto listen to reason. And as I'm
saying, if we were going tostay in the city, the first thing
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I'd spend money for would be anew dental engine, an electric one.
Need it like the mischief. Losepatience when they see me pumping that old
one and think I ain't up todate, which I ain't. But that's
no skin off their nose. Eventhe volatile Maybel was silent at the unprecedented
length and vigor of his oration.But we're not going to stay, no,
(31:41):
sir, We're going back to theold farm, and the kids will
be brought up in the fresh airinstead of a lot of alleys. Go
back and farm it, she explodedthen, and as she spoke, she
looked at him with eyes hot withhatred, the first hatred he had ever
known in her Are you crazy?Go back to that hole, have my
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kids messing around a lot of manureand dirty animals, and out working in
the hay field like a lot ofcattle, and attend a little one room
school with a boob for a teacher, and play with a lot of knit
with brats. Not on your life, They won't. I've got some ambition
for em even if you haven't.Why May I thought you liked Vermont and
(32:28):
the farm. You were crazy aboutit on our honeymoon, and you said
I did not. I hated iteven then. I just said I liked
it to make you happy. Thatstifling little bedroom and kerosene lamps and bugs
and no bathroom, and those foolsof farmers in their shirt sleeves. Oh
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it was fierce. If you go, you go without the kids and me.
I guess I can still earn aliving, and I guess there's still
plenty of other men would like tomarry me when I divorce you. And
I mean it. She did,and Sidney knew she did. He collapsed
as helplessly as he had with hisfather. Well, of course, if
(33:15):
you can't stand it, he muttered, Well, I'm glad you're beginning to
come to your senses. Honest,I think you were just crazy with the
heat. But listen, here's whatI'll do. I won't kick about your
getting the electric dental doodingis if itdon't cost too much. Now, how
do you go about selling the farm? There began for this silent man a
(33:39):
secret life of plotting and of lies. Somehow he could not see how he
must persuade her to go to thefarm. Perhaps she would die, But
he was shocked at this thought,for he loved her and believed her to
be the best woman living, asconceivably she may have been. But he
did not obey her and sell thefarm. He lied. He told her
(34:02):
that a Vermont real estate dealer hadwritten that just this autumn there was no
market for farms, but next yearwould be excellent, and the next year
he repeated the lie and rented thefarm to Uncle Rob, who had done
well enough on Iowa Cornland, butwas homesick for the hills and sugar groves
and placid maples of Vermont. Himself. Sidney did not go to the farm.
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It was not permitted. Maybel wasfurious that he had not sold,
that they had only the three thousand, which was never invested for clothes and
bridge prizes and payments on the car, and, after a good deal of
irritated talk his electric dental engine.If he had always been sullenly restless in
his little office, now he wasraging. He felt robbed the little back
(34:51):
room, the view not even ofwaste land now, but of the center
of a cheap block, and theback of new tenements. The anguish of
patients, which crucified his heavy,unspoken sympathy for them, and that horrible,
unending series of wide stretched mouths andbad molars and tongues. It was
intolerable. He thought of meadows scatteredwith daisies and devil's paint brush, of
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dark healing thundershowers pouring up the longvalley. He must go home to the
land. From the landlord who ownedhis office. He got in the spring,
a year and a half after hisfather's death, the right to garden
a tiny patch amid the litter andcement areaways in the center of the block.
Maybel laughed at him, but hestayed late every evening to cultivate each
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inch of his pocket paradise, alarge man with huge feet, setting them
carefully down in a plot ten feetsquare. The earth understood him, as
it does such men. And beforethe Long Island market gardeners had anything to
display, Sydney had a row ofbeautiful radish plants, A dozen radishes wrapped
(35:57):
in a tabloid newspaper. He tookhome one night and he said, vaingloriously
to Maybell, You'll never get anyradishes like these in the market, right
out of our own garden. Sheate one absently. He braced himself to
hear a jeering you and your oldgarden. What he did here was,
in its uncaring still worse. Yes, they're all right. I guess he'd
(36:23):
show her, he'd make her seehim as a great farmer. And with
that ambition he lost every scruple heplotted. And this was the way of
that plotting. Early in July,he said, and casually, well,
now we got the darn car allpaid for, we ought to use it.
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Maybe we might take the kids thissummer and make a little tour for
a couple weeks or so. Whereshe sounded suspicious, and in his newborn
guile, he droned, Oh,wherever you'd like, I hear it's nice
up around Niagara Falls and the GreatLakes. Maybe come back by way of
(37:05):
Pennsylvania and see Valley Forge and allthem famous historical sites. Well, yes,
perhaps the Golhams made a tour lastsummer, and they make me sick.
They never stopped talking about it.They went, and maybel enjoyed it.
She was, by no means alwaysa nagger and an improver. She
(37:28):
was so only when her interests,or what she deemed the interests of her
children, were threatened. She madejokes about the towns through which they passed.
Any community of less than fifty thousandwas to her New Yorkism a hick
hole, and she even sang jazzand admired his driving, which was bad.
They had headed north up the Hudson. At Glen's Falls. He took
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the highway to the right instead ofleft toward the Great Lakes, and she,
the city girl, the urban rusticto whom the only directions that meant
anything were east side and west sideas applied to New York, did not
notice, and she was still unsuspiciouswhen he grumbled, looks to me like
I'd taken the wrong road. Stoppingat a filling station, he demanded,
(38:12):
how far is it to Lake George? We ought to be there now,
Well, stranger way you're headed,it'll be about twenty five thousand miles.
You're going plumb in the wrong direction. I'll be darned. Where are we
didn't notice the name of the lasttown we went through. You're about a
(38:35):
mile from fair Haven, Vermont,Yep. Well, I'll be darned.
Just think of that. Can't evenbe trusted to stay in one state and
not skid across the borderline. Maybellwas looking suspicious, and he said,
with desperate gaiety, say, doyou know what, may We're only forty
(39:00):
miles from our farm. Let's gohave a look at it. Maybell made
a sound of protest, but heturned to the children in the back seat,
amid a mess of suit cases andtools and a jack and spare inner
tubes and gloated. Wouldn't you kidslike to see the farm where I worked
as a kid, where your grandfatherand great grandfather were born, and see
(39:22):
your grand uncle Rob, and seeall the little chicks and so on.
Oh? Yes, they shrilled togetherwith that enthusiasm from her beloved young,
with the smart and uniformed young fillingstation attendant listening, Maybell's talent for being
righteous and indignant was gagged appearances,She said lightly to the filling station man.
(39:46):
The doctor just doesn't seem to beable to keep the road at all,
does he? Well, doctor,shall we get started? Even when
they had gone on and were aloneand ready for a little sound domestic quarreling,
she merely croaked just the same,it seems mighty queer to me.
And after another mile of brooding,while Sydney drove silently and prayed awfully queer,
(40:10):
but he scarcely heard her. Hewas speculating without in the least putting
it into words. I wonder ifin the early summer evenings the fireflies still
dart above the meadows. I wonderif the full moon, before it rises
behind the hemlocks and sugar maples alongthe ridge still casts up a prophetic glory.
(40:31):
I wonder if sleepy dogs still barkacross the valley. I wonder if
the night breeze slips through the mowingI who have for fortress and self respect
only a stuffy office room. Iwonder if there are still valleys and stars
and the quiet night. Or wasthat all only the dream of youth?
(40:51):
They slept at Rutland Sidney, allimpatient of the sidified hotel bedroom. It
was at ten in the morning hedrove in twenty minutes the distance which thirty
years ago had taken Uncle Rob.An hour and a half that he drove
up to the White House, wheresince eighteen hundred the Daus had been born.
He could see Uncle Rob with thehay ache in the south, mowing
(41:12):
sedately, driving the old team andignoring the visitors. I guess he probably
thinks were bootleggers, chuckled Sydney.Come on, you kids, here's where
your old daddy worked all one summer. Let's go thirsty. Say I'll give
you a drink of real spring water, not none of this chlorinated city stuff,
(41:36):
and we'll see the menagerie. Beforehe had finished, Rob and Willabette
had slipped over the rear doors ofthe car and were looking down into the
valley with little sounds of excitement.Sidney whisked out almost as quickly as they
while Maybell climbed down with the dignitysuitable to a dweller in the bronx.
He ignored her. He clucked hischildren round the house to the spring fed
(42:00):
well and pumped a bucket of water. Oh it's so cold, daddy,
it's swell, said Rob. Youbet your life, it's cold and swell.
Say don't use words like swell,they're common. But hell with that.
(42:21):
Come on, you brats, I'llshow you something. There were kittens
and two old, grave, courteouscats. There was a calf heaven nosed
by how many generations it was descendedfrom the calf that, on a June
morning, when Sidney was sixteen,had licked his fingers. There were ducklings
(42:42):
and young turkeys with feathers grotesquely scatteredover their skins like palm trees in a
desert, and unexpected more kittens,and an old brown and white tail wagging
dog, and a pen of excitedlittle pigs. The children squealed over all
of them until Maybell caught up coughinga little. Well, she said,
(43:02):
the kits are kind of cute,ain't they? Then darkly, now that
you've got me here, Sid withyour plans and all, Uncle Rob crept
up, snarling what you folks want? By gracious? If it ain't sid
this your wife and children? Well, sir, it was. Sidney felt
(43:25):
the climax of his plot, andhe cried to his son Rob, this
is your grand uncle that you werenamed for. How'd you like to stay
here on the farm instead of inNew York? Hot dog, I'd love
it. Them kittens and the lillducks. Oh they're the berries, you
(43:47):
bet. I'd like to stay.Oh, I'd love it, gurgled his
sister. You would not, snappedMabel. With no bathroom, we could
put one in, growled Sydney.On what on all the money you'd make
growing orchids and bananas? Here?I guess you kids? How'd you like
(44:10):
to walk two miles to school throughthe snow in winter? Oh? That
would be slick. Maybe we couldkill a deer, said young Rob.
Yes, and maybe a field mousecould kill you, you dumb bell.
Sure lovely all evening with not adog gone thing to do? After supper,
(44:35):
Why we'd go to the movies?Do you go to the movies often?
Grand Uncle Rob well afraid in winteryou wouldn't get to go to the
movies at all. Pretty far intotown hesitated, Uncle Rob, not go
to the movies, screamed The citychildren incredulous. It was the most terrible
(44:57):
thing they had ever heard of.Rob Junior mourned, Oh, g,
that wouldn't be so good. Sayhow do the Hicks learn anything if they
don't go to the movies. Butstill we could go in the summer,
ma, and in the winter itwould be elegant, with sliding and hunting
in everything. I'd love it.Maybell cooked supper, banging the pans a
(45:22):
good deal and emitting opinions of ahouse that had no porcelain sink, no
water taps, no refrigerator, nogas or electricity. She was silent through
supper, silent as Sydney, silentas Uncle Rob. But Sidney was exultant
with the children for allies he wouldwin, and the children themselves they were
(45:44):
hysterical until Maybell screamed for annoyance.They leaped up from the table to come
back with the most unspeakable and Unbronxianobjects. A cat affectionately carried by his
hind leg, but squealing with misunderstandingof the affection. A dead mole,
an unwiped oil can, a muckcovered spade. But mother, they protested,
(46:07):
in the city you never find anythingexcept maybe a dead lemon. She
shewed them off to bed at eight, herself sniffily. She disappeared at nine,
muttering to Sydney, I hope youand your boyfriend Uncle Rob chew the
rag all night and get it outof your systems. He was startled,
for indeed, the next step ofhis plot did concern Uncle rob and secret
(46:30):
parleys. For half an hour hewalked the road, almost frightened by the
intensity of stillness. He could fancycatamounts in the birch clumps, but between
spasms of skittish city nerves. Hestretched out, his arms, arched back,
his hands breathed consciously. This wasnot just air necessary meat for the
(46:52):
lungs. It was a spirit thatfilled him. He knew that he must
not tarry after nine thirty for hisintrigue with Uncle rob U. Uncle Rob
was seventy five and in seventy fivetimes three hundred and sixty five evenings.
He had doubtless stayed up later thannine thirty o'clock several times, dancing with
the little French Canuck girls at PotsdamForge as a young man sitting up with
(47:15):
a sick cow since then, orstuck in the mud on his way back
from Sunday evening meeting. But thosefew times were epical. Uncle Rob did
not hold with Roistering in staying uptill all hours just for the vanities of
the flesh. Sidney crept up thestairs to Uncle Rob's room. Maybelle and
(47:35):
Sydney had the best bedroom on theground floor, Long Rob and Bet had
Grandpa's room on the second. UncleRob lived in the attic. Sidy folks
might have wondered why Uncle Rob,tenant and controller of the place, should
have hidden in the attic with threegood bedrooms below him. It was simple.
Uncle Rob had always lived there sincehe was a boy. Up the
(48:00):
narrow stairs steep as a rock face, Sydney crept and knocked, who's there?
A sharp voice, a bit uneasy? How many years was it since
Uncle Rob had heard any one knockat his bedroom door? It's me Rob,
sid Oh, well, well,guess you can come in wait LLL
(48:22):
I unlock the door. Sydney enteredhis uncle's room for the first time in
his life. The Hill people,anywhere in the world do not intrude or
encourage intrusion. Perhaps to fastidious andalien persons, Uncle Rob's room would have
seemed unlovely. It was lighted bya kerosene lamp, smoking a little with
(48:45):
the wick burned down. On oneside. There was for furniture only a
camp caught with a kitchen chair,a washstand, and a bureau. But
to make up for this paucity,the room was rather littered. On the
washstand beside a pitcher dry from longdisuse, there were a mail order catalog,
(49:05):
a few packets of seed, alone overshoe, a ball of twine,
a bottle of applejack, and aSpanish wore veterans metal. The walls
and ceiling were of plaster, soold that they showed in black lines the
edges of every lath. And Sidneyliked it, like the simplicity, liked
the freedom from neatness and order anddisplay, liked and envied the old bock
(49:27):
quality of it all. Uncle Rob, lying on the bed, had prepared
for slumber by removing his shoes andouter clothing. He blinked at Sydney's amazing
intrusion, but he said amiably enough. Well, boy, Uncle Rob can't
tell you how glad I am tobe back at the old place. Hum.
(49:51):
Look, I golly, I feelskittish as a young colt hardly know
the old dock. My patience wouldn'tRob, You got to help me,
Maybell don't want to stay here andfarm. It may be me and you
partners, eh, but the kidsand I are crazy too. How I
hate that old city. So dothe kids? Yeah, sure they do.
(50:16):
Didn't you hear how they said theywouldn't mind tramping to school and not
having any movies? Sid, Maybeyou'll understand kids when you get to be
a granddad. Kids will always agreewith anything that sounds exciting. Rob thinks
it would be dandy to hoof ittwo miles through the snow to school.
(50:37):
He won't not once he's done it. Uncle Rob thrust his hands behind his
skinny, bark, brown old neckon the maculate pillow he was making perhaps
the longest oration of his life.The light flickered, and a spider moved
indignantly in its web in a corner. No, said Uncle Rob. He
(50:59):
won't like it. I never did, and the schoolmaster used to lick me.
I hated it crawling through that snowand then get licked because you're late.
And Jiminy haven thought of it forthirty years, I guess maybe forty.
But I remember how some big fellowwould dare you to put your tongue
to your lunch pale and it wasmaybe thirty below and your tongue stuck to
(51:21):
it and it took the hide rightoff. No, I never liked any
of it, especially chores. Rob, Listen, I'm serious. The kids
will maybe kind of find it hardat first, but they'll get to like
it, and they'll grow up realfolks and not city SAPs. It'll be
all right with them. I'll seeto that. It's Maybel, listen,
(51:46):
Rob, I've got a swell ideaabout her, and I want you to
help me. You get hold ofthe ladies of the township, the Grange
members and the Methodist ladies, andlike that. You tell m Maybel is
a swell city girl, and itwould be dandy for the neighborhood if they
could get her to stay here.She's grand, but she does kind of
(52:07):
fall for flattery, and in thebronx she ain't so important. And if
these ladies came and told her theythought she was the cat's pajamas, maybe
she'd fall for it. And thenI guess maybe she might stay. If
the ladies came, they wouldn't.Uncle Rob had been rubbing his long and
prickly chin and curling his toes inhis gray socks. What do you mean,
(52:31):
well, first place, the ladiesround here would be on to your
Maybell. They ain't so backwards asthey was in your time. Take missus
Craig. Last three winters her andher husband Frank have packed up the fliver
and gone to Florida. But thatain't it? Fact? Is Sid?
(52:52):
I kind of sympathize with Maybell.What do you mean well? I never
was strong for farming hard life.Sid always thought I'd like to keep store
or something in the city. Youforget how hard the work is here,
you with your easy job, justfilling a few teeth. No, I
(53:15):
can't help you, Sid, Isee all right, Sorry for disturbing you.
As he crept downstairs in bewilderment,Sydney prayed, he who so rarely
prayed, O Lord doesn't anybody butme love the land anymore? What is
going to happen to us? Whyall our life comes from the land.
(53:38):
He knew that in the morning hewould beg Mabel to stay for a fortnight,
and that she would not stay.It was his last night here,
so all night long, slow andsilent, he walked the country roads,
looking at hemlock branches against the sky, solemnly shaking his head and wondering why
he could never rid himself of thissinfulness of longing for the why he could
(54:00):
never be grown up and ambitious andworthy like his father and Maybelle and Uncle Rob
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