Seeing Things at Night

Michael

The man who gave us Michael said that he was a Shetland terrier. Frankly, I don't believe there is any such thing; unless Michael is it. But there is no denying a Scotch strain of some sort. There is a good deal of John Knox about Michael. He recognizes no middle ground. There was no difficulty, for instance, in convincing Michael of the wickedness of some manifestations of the grossness which is mortality, but it has been impossible to make him accept any working compromise such as those by which men and dogs live. He can see no reason why there should be any geographical limits or bounds to badness.

There is a certain fierce democracy in that. Michael thinks no less of a backyard or a sidewalk than he does of a parlor. Or perhaps it would be better to say he thinks no more of a parlor. Repentance comes to him more easily than reformation. And yet I have an enormous respect for Michael's point of view as I understand it. He doesn't want to burn, of course, but he has no patience with dogs who blandly hope to attain salvation by leading lamp-post lives.

In some things I would have Michael more practical. That man who brought him here said that his father was an excellent mouser. I have come to wonder whether the legitimacy of Michael is beyond question. Doubt struck me the other day in the kitchen when I saw an over-venturesome mouse clinging precariously to a window curtain and swinging back and forth not more than a foot from the ground.

"Look, Michael," I said, "it's a mouse!"

I tried to say it with the same intensity as "Voila un sousmarin!" or "It's gold, pardner!" or something of the sort, but Michael looked at my finger instead of the mouse and wagged his tail. He backed away from me playfully and bounced around a little and barked. Indeed, he backed into the curtain and the tail of the mouse went swish, swish across his back, but Michael continued to wag. I have some little hope that this particular mouse will not come back for a time. He was visibly terrified, but of course it would be impossible to predict any permanent condition of shock. At any rate, by a supreme effort he mastered his panic. Wrenching himself loose from the curtain, he jumped and landed on Michael's back. Then he hopped to the floor and disappeared behind the potato barrel. Michael sat down slowly and scratched himself.

Last week I thought I detected a real fusion of Michael's undoubted idealism and direct practical action. Somebody brought The New York American into the house and left it on the floor. When I came in I found that Michael had torn it to shreds. He had been particularly severe with the editorial page. I patted him and gave him some warm milk. To-day I discovered he had mutilated a third edition of The Tribune. And upon inquiry I learned that he would chew almost anything except The New Republic. His teeth are not quite sharp enough for such heavy paper yet. It is just possible that there is some more subtle reason for the exception. Sometimes I think that Michael has a "New Republic" mind.

Buying a Farm

It began as "a farm," but even before the catalogues arrived it was "the farm." Now we call it "our farm," although the land is still in Spain abutting on the castle. Chiefly, the place is for Michael. The backyard is much too small for him, and too formal. He regards the house with affection, no doubt, but with none of that respect which he has for the backyard. He is, as you might say, thoroughly yard-broken. When he puts his paws against the front door and barks for freedom he would be a harsh person indeed who would refuse to plan a plantation, a large one, for him. Of course, there was H. 3rd to consider, also, but he seemed less restive. Things beyond the borders of a pram are so foreign.

By eliminating Maine, Ohio and all farms priced at more than twenty thousand dollars, we succeeded at length in narrowing the field of selection to three. One, which has the attractive name of Farm No. 97, is in Connecticut. It has "good American neighbors on all sides." It is only half a mile to some village, not specified. Four of the ten acres are tillable and the rest in timber. Since there are at least 250 cords of wood bringing five to six dollars per cord, the author of the catalogue is entirely justified in the use of the phrase "ridiculously low" regarding the price of $1,500. The author of the catalogue goes on to say that "the owner is an aged widow," and we have gathered the impression that the author means to intimate that she is not quite competent. This would explain the ridiculously low price.

However, we wish to defend our motives in favoring Farm No. 97. It was not the opportunity to swindle a widow out of her homestead which tempted us, nor even the cordwood, but a single sentence almost at the bottom of the description. It read, "Aged owner, for quick sale, will include good mare that has paced a mile in 2:20." This would bring the village half a mile away within one minute and ten seconds, while the good American neighbors would be only seconds away.

E – was the devil's advocate. "The description doesn't tell enough," she complained. "The 2:20 doesn't mean anything unless it says 'track fast, start good, won driving,' or something like that. And I'd like to know who held the watch. I think we ought to know what year it was that she made that mile in 2:20. Doesn't it say that the woman is an aged widow? Doesn't it stand to reason that she must have bought that fast mare some time in her forties, at least? Anyway, 2:20 isn't so very fast for a pacer. Dan Patch did it in less than two minutes."

In default of more definite information about the pacing mare, we turned to a farm called "Coin Money on a Bargain." This is an oyster farm, as it borders two thousand feet on the Patuxent River. The tillage, as the author says, "is loamy and fine for trucking." It is well fruited to apples and grapes. I drew, as I thought, a rather attractive picture of a scene before the big open fireplace in the modern four-room bungalow of "Coin Money on a Bargain." I pictured the group telling stories and roasting apples and stewing grapes and frying oysters over the embers. R – interrupted to say that, without doubt, just as soon as H. 3rd began to crawl, he would fall into the river with the oysters.

"Yes," said E – , "and Michael would try and eat shells, and they'd disagree with him, like that coal he got hold of last night."

I mentioned the fact that oysters cost from thirty to fifty cents for a half dozen portion, and spoke of the manner in which the shellfish could be crowded along a 2,000-foot front.

"Yes," said E – , aggressively, "but how are you going to get them to market?"

There I had her. "You have forgotten the description," I remarked. "It says the farm is fine for trucking."

But eventually it was a place called Only Nine Hundred Dollars Down to which we turned our attention. It lay up north along the Hudson and a man named George F. Sweetser promised to show it off to purchasers.

In the newspaper advertisement it merely said "George F. Sweetser, Real Estate Agent." Only after his letter came did we realize the sort of man with whom we had to deal. The letter was much more communicative than the advertisement.

The left-hand half of the envelope read: "George F. Sweetser, Storm King on the Hudson, New York. Legalized expert judge of horses, cattle, poultry, fruits, etc. – pomologist and botanist – private scoring and mating poultry – starting judge of races – originator of Buff Brahmas – breeder of prize winning, standard bred poultry, cattle, etc. – superintendent of farm produce and grain at New York State Fair."

I was careful, therefore, to explain my business at the beginning. "I want to see a farm," I said.

"I'm certainly glad to see you coming out this way," said the pomologist. "We want new blood. We want active, hard-working young fellows around here. We got too many amateurs and old fogies. Would you believe it, a lot of fellows around here won't use green fertilizer, even when I tell them about it."

"No?" I said.

"They just want to stick in the old rut and do things the way their grandfathers did before there was a war, Do you know what it is makes things grow?"

"Rain," I suggested, after a long pause.

"Yes, rain, of course," said the originator of Buff Brahmas, "but nitrogen, too. And where do we get nitrogen?"

"It comes from Chile, or Honduras, or some place down that way, doesn't it?" I hazarded.

"No, sir," said the starting judge of races. "Up here in Putnam County we get it right out of the air. That's what green fertilizer does – just brings it right out of the air."

And he reached up and clutched something, as if he was going to bring some down himself and show it to me. Instead, he let the gas drift away and pointed to a farm just across the road from the post-office.

"Do you see that farm over there?"

I nodded.

"Well, that man took my advice and he got 440 bushels of potatoes on two acres."

I tried to think just how far 440 bushels of potatoes might stretch if French fried and placed end to end. It was beyond me.

"That's a lot of potatoes," I murmured.

"I'll say it is," answered Mr. Sweetser. "You know what potatoes were selling for last year?" he said aggressively.

"Not last year," I answered.

"Well, they were selling for $1.50 a bushel. I told that man over there to hold off a bit, but he didn't take my advice, and later on they sold for $2. It wasn't such bad business, either, at $1.50. Do you know how much 440 bushels at $1.50 are?"

I could do that one, and after awhile I said "$660."

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Sweetser. "And this farm I got for sale is eighty-five acres. Now, suppose you put all that in potatoes. How much could you get?"

"It would be a lot of money," I said, after a vain attempt to work it out in my head.

"Not that I'd advise you to put it all in potatoes. There's cows and corn and berries and pigs. This is lovely country for pigs. You certainly owe it to yourself to have pigs. If I was a young man I'd just do nothing but pigs. And there's alfalfa. You can cut that three times a year, and you get about five tons to the acre. There was a man on a place right next to mine that put four and a half acres into corn and he got $349.70 for it."

"How's the house?" I interrupted.

"Oh, don't you bother about the house," said Mr. Sweetser. "It's comfortable. That's what I'd call it – comfortable. And I allus say you're not buying houses; they don't count for nothing in the long run; you're buying land. Even if that was an elegant house, you'd want to fix it up some way to suit yourself, wouldn't you? I'd like to show you the place this afternoon. There's good corn, and I know you'd enjoy seeing the rye and the pigs. But, you see, I'm kinder pressed for time. I'm superintendent of a big place around here, and I got to look at that, and later on this afternoon I have to register the alien enemies – the women, you know – and to-night there's a meeting of the draft board. I guess I've told you enough, though, about what kind of land it is around here. Just look at this piece right here."

He led the way across the road.

"You wouldn't find finer soil than that if you was to drive all afternoon. Just look at it." And he kicked some of the rocks away so that I could get a closer view.

"Why, the crops alone and the timber ought to pay for this place in a couple of months. Why, I'd just love to buy it myself if I was a young fellow and wasn't so busy. If you come up this way again let me know when to expect you, because I've got to go up and superintend a fair next Thursday, and on Friday I'm judging chickens, and Saturday the school board meets."

It was at this point that fate took a hand in the affairs of the busy Mr. Sweetser for no sooner had we got into the car and started for home than a tire blew out.

I sat down under a tree to advise the real estate agent and watch him fix it. An old man from down the road also came over to watch. He was chewing a straw, and he wore a pair of suspenders called Sampson. I asked about the weather first, and he said, without much interest, that it had been too cool and too rainy. Then he took up the questioning.

"What part of the country are you from?" he inquired.

I said New York, and added New York City.

"Yes; I know," said the farmer. "I've been there. I saw the Hudson-Fulton celebration. I've seen about everything," he said, "I went to the San Francisco Exposition."

I nodded, and he went on: "Chicago was the first stop, and then we went through Kansas. Out of the window you could see wheat and corn all the way along. It was beautiful. And then by and by we came to the Rocky Mountains. They're mighty big mountains, and it took three engines to pull the train up. Sometimes on the curves you could almost touch the engine. Every now and then we'd go through a tunnel. Then we went down south into the big desert. There was nothing there but sagebrush. And they took us up to the Grand Canyon. Did you ever see it?" he asked.

I lied and said yes, but he went on: "The Grand Canyon's 123 miles long and twenty-five miles wide and one mile deep. I grabbed hold of a tree and looked over the edge, and down there at the bottom were all kinds of rocks, red and green and yellow, and there were horses' heads and horses' hoofs and barns and castles and haystacks and everything better than an artist could have done."

"I don't suppose you've seen any of these submarines around here," I interrupted, as a possible diversion.

"Oh, yes; I've seen them," he said; "not here, but out at the San Francisco Exposition. They had submarines and floating mines. They're big. They look like an old-fashioned white turnip, and they float under the water, and when a ship strikes one it blows up. An' they had a big buildin' out at the fair as big as that barn, and in the middle of it was a butter-making machine, and it could turn out more butter in an afternoon than I get off this place in a year. An' there was a Tower of Jewels 425 feet high, and it had 15,635 jewels on it from Persia. And they all shone in the sun. And they had flying machines, too. At night they put lights on 'em, and they went up in the air and turned somersaults over and over again. I wouldn't go up in one of 'em if you was to give me all that meadow land over there.

"After we left the fair we went up north through the spruce forests, and they tell me now that the government's sent 8,000 men up there to cut that spruce and put it into the flying machines, an' I suppose some of those trees I saw are up in the air now turning somersaults.

"We didn't stop agin till we got to Detroit. That's where they make the Fords, Tin Lizzies, they call 'em around here. But I always say, What difference does it make what they call 'em if they can do the work? I always say one of 'em's as good as a horse – as good as two horses. An' then we came back here and I've stuck around for a spell 'cause I think I've seen most everything there is."

By that time the real estate agent had fixed the tire, and we drove away. The man with the Sampson suspenders was looking rather contemptuously at his flock of sheep. They would never get to San Francisco.

I can't remember now just why we didn't buy Only Nine Hundred Dollars Down but somehow or other the decision of the council went against it. Our attention at present is fastened on a place over in New Jersey called One Man Farm Equipped. This, like so many of the attractive bargains in the advertisements, belongs to a widow. As the paragraph in the newspapers has it "Widow left alone will sell farm for $1,000 spot cash." E. thinks that delay in the matter may be fatal because of the cheapness of the price. "How can we tell," is the burden of her plaint, "that they will leave her alone?"

Romance and Reticence

Whenever a man remarks "I've had a mighty adventurous life, I have," we usually set him down as a former king of the Coney Island carnival or a recently returned delegate from an Elks' convention in Kansas City. It has been our somewhat bitter experience that the man who pictures himself as a great adventurer is almost invariably spurious. As a matter of fact, the rule holds good for great wits, great lovers and great drinkers. But it applies with particular pertinence to romantic folk.

A wise professor at Harvard once remarked that he didn't believe that the ancients realized that they were ancients. We have somewhat the same feeling about quaint people and romantic people and adventurous people.

Of course we must admit the existence in life and in literature of authentic but sophisticated romantic figures. Cyrano was one and, to a lesser extent, d'Artagnan. Porthos is on our side. But the best example we can remember is Huckleberry Finn. Tom Sawyer pictured himself as a romantic figure. Huck didn't. When Huck went a-wandering he thought it was because the store clothes the widow had given him were uncomfortable. It was actually another itch, but he did not know its name. This to our mind is the essence of true adventure. When a man comes to recognize romance he is in a position to bargain and parley. He is not the true adventurer. Things no longer just happen to him. He has to go out and seek them. He has lost his amateur standing.

Huck, who didn't know what it was all about, had much more exciting adventures than Tom and he was a more fascinating figure in the happening. Jim would also come into our category of true adventurers, and, to skip back a bit, Tom Jones is almost type perfect. Just so Sancho Panza seems to us more fundamentally romantic than Don Quixote, and we have always been more interested in what happened to Doctor Watson than in the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock foresaw things – and that is fatal to romance.

The Prodigal Son belongs in our list, and Andrew Jackson, and Lot's wife, and Eddie Rickenbacker, and Lord Jim, and Ajax, and Little Red Riding Hood, and Thomas Edison, and the father of the Katzenjammer Kids, and most of Bluebeard's wives and all the people who refused to go into the ark.

While we are willing to admit that there are other types who are successfully romantic, in spite of self-consciousness, they are the exceptions. We are hardly willing to accept them in a group. This brings us to Mrs. Fiske's new play, Mis' Nelly, of N'Orleans, at which we have been aiming throughout the article.

There are nine characters in the play, and the author pictures each of them as being distinctly aware that he is an adventurous character, in a quaint garden, in a romantic city, in a mad story. It is true that these people do some romantic and adventurous things, but never without first predicting that they are going to be romantic, and then explaining after it is all over that they have been romantic. From our point of view there is too much challenge in this. Whenever a man or woman in a play or in life promises that he is about to do something quaint we have an irresistible desire to lay him 6 to 5 that it won't be any such thing. Then if the decision is left to us we always decide against him.

The method of the preliminary puff and the subsequent official confirmation is decidedly a mistake in the case of the character portrayed by Mrs. Fiske in Mis' Nelly, of N'Orleans. Mrs. Fiske showed herself quite capable of carrying the rôle of a spirited, romantic and adventurous belle, and it was unnecessary to have her triumph so carefully prepared in advance by the predictions of her servants as to what she would do when she "got her Jim Crow up."

We might have been content to accept some of the other characters as sure enough romantic figures if they had not been so confoundedly confident that they were. They fairly challenged us into disbelief. The author, to our mind, was wrong from the beginning in describing his comedy on the program as a comedy of "moonshine, madness and make-believe." Moonshine and madness are both elusive stage qualities. An author is fortunate indeed if he can achieve them. He is foolish to take the risk of predicting them. If he succeeds in presenting authentic moonshine and madness he will not need to inform the audience of the fact by means of the program and still less through his characters. Mis' Nelly, of N'Orleans left us much more convinced of the make-believe.

A play which affected us in somewhat similar fashion was The Gipsy Trail, produced here a season or so ago. In this play the author presented a character who seemed to be a truly romantic figure for at least half the play. Then he was suddenly trapped into a confession that he was romantic. Somebody asked him about it, and, most unfortunately, he set out to prove that he was an adventurer in a long speech beginning "I have fried eggs on top of the Andes" or in some such manner, and from that moment we grew away from him. We knew him as no true adventurer, but as a man who would eventually write a book or at best a series of articles for a Sunday magazine.

The real tragedy of romance is that any man who appreciates his own loses it. In this workaday world we can live only by taking in the other fellow's adventures.