Our Village

HOURS from any city, our village has changed little since fifty years ago. It had then a hotel, and the country roundabout was so wild that visitors from the city came in the summer for a change. Now, most of the great oak forests have been cut for railway-ties, the game has been shot, the bass may rarely be caught in the river. Hills that cut off the horizon are dotted with sheep; from the tops one gets a sweep of country with few farmhouses in sight. There are cities beyond; there is no sense of remoteness, such as one feels in looking to the north and knowing that one might go to the Arctic Circle without seeing a town.

Our isolation is, therefore, not geographical. We are in the midst of what a facetious editor of the nearest city daily calls ’the garden spot of the world.’ Powerful limousines occasionally go through the village, showing a mild curiosity and large interests behind and beyond. The single track of railroad fills the valley at irregular intervals with unnecessary shrieks of freight engines; sonorous passenger whistles multiply warnings for bridge and station on the more familiar hours, or insolently rouse the sleeping villagers when the midnight train goes through without stop. Travelers rarely get off; salesmen supply our simple wants once or twice a year, between trains: there is no hotel, nor would their commissions justify staying over night. There is not even a boarding-house.

The village is not interested in strangers to the extent of putting them up for the night. It has nothing to offer. There are no struggling manufactories needing capital; there are no resources inviting capital. The villagers own their plain frame houses built many years ago. Five new houses have been added in thirty years. Our taxes, less an amount barely necessary to run the school and street-lamps, go to the county and state. We have no paved streets, no sewerage system, no police or fire department. A private corporation, with most limited liability, furnishes water. All I get from taxes is a feeble natural gas-light below on the unmade street; but when the village could no longer pay a man to put out the street-lamps, the gas company shut off the gas. We then went out at night with lanterns.

We are all poor. Two or three villagers with independent means go and come; no one knows or cares, for their influence is negligible. No captain of industry commands anybody. There is no labor-problem, for there is no labor. A few able-bodied workmen may now and then be engaged, if they have nothing more important to do, and if they feel like working. When it is not loaned on mortgage, the village carpenter keeps a heavy balance in the bank. He has helped many a less energetic friend, without security and without return. We have no labor-union, perhaps because there are no employers of labor. I may get help when I am my own contractor and head-workman. I may practise any trade without boycott. Infrequent periods of such improvement furnish innocent excitement. Little checks change hands, neighbors stop to comment; night brings a sense of exquisite fatigue. One jingles money for unforeseen nails and bolts and paint. At other times one may go for weeks with only a bit of silver for church.

Occasionally an ancient oak must come down. An upstart red oak shows but ninety-seven rings; a white oak felled the other day had two hundred and sixty-five rings; where are other trees that were living in Milton’s time? Up in the garret, to stop squirrel-holes, I noticed that all the rafters and beams were of white oak. And the stone of the house was quarried from a local hillside. Infinite labor it took to saw and hew those timbers from the fellow of the white oak; men in the village to-day do not quarry the local stone, trim the huge blocks, and swing them on to twofoot walls, the prize of my modest possessions. Our two new houses came from mail-order concerns, machined from the thinnest lumber that will hold a house together.

Two small general stores maintain a rivalry begun generations ago. The village humorist and historian entered one the other day with a copy of the village paper printed in the eighteen-fifties. ‘I see in this paper that you advertise photographs of the village. I should like to buy some.’ The proprietor walked over to an old cherry cabinet, and from a drawer took out photographs faded and yellow with age. The man of humor gravely inspected them. ‘Well’, he finally remarked, ‘I see it pays to advertise’.

The newspaper-presses and type, and the building containing them, have all disappeared. The village tinker, who could mend a watch or gun or sewingmachine, is dead, and no one takes his place. Anciently there were three churches, each with a full congregation militantly active in urging a special form of truth. Two churches now more than answer the need, and only in days of acute national crisis have they been crowded.

Only two classes of people may live in our village contentedly: those who have ample resources of occupation and interest within themselves, and those who have and crave none. There is no ready-made amusement. We have no saloon, no theatre, no moving-picture show. There is no community playground or athletic field. There is no club. In front of a stairway of a fraternal order, buggies and sleighs will be hitched on an occasional night. Once a year, one church will give the annual supper; once a year, the other church will give the annual supper. Women gather weekly to sew for mountain whites. The school-board meets once a month, or oftener if the itch, measles, or other epidemic threatens; and between solemn prophecies on the state of the nation and personal criticism of the Powers, votes the budget for salaries and the gas-bill. At election time results of the 144 votes are posted, no longer showing an even balance of straight tickets, but highly electic groups.

The village is not gregarious. The common cause and common labor of the pioneer have changed to furtive ambitions and concealed purposes. Intensive individualism successfully withstands all attempts at coöperation, in time of peace. In war, without announcement, without noise or argument, the village exceeded its quota of men and money in every count, revealing unity, hard cash, and patriotism unguessed by anyone.

The lack of express community spirit had grieved more eager souls. Several years ago the parson brought back from the East ambitious plans for community welfare. There were many committees appointed, as on music, dramatics, lectures, sport. Soon complaints were lodged that the orchestra kept people awake, and no one can deny that the village regards sleep, beginning at ten o’clock, sun-time, as of more importance than the playing of an orchestra never so sure of itself as to put the audience at ease.

What, it will be asked, do we accomplish in such anti-social contentment? We read. The metropolitan press consumes from one to three hours a day; magazines fill several days a month; but books are the serious business of life. We read many books, big books, works in volumes, through. A literary man in a narrow city flat will write a book in less time than a villager will master one. But the villager selects with canny choice; the best seller has little significance for him; he may still be reading Gibbon. A girl in the village school asked for the best edition of Chatterton. Fashion in books works little change in our taste; one may read Tennyson without impeachment, and while our sense of humor is too delicately poised to tolerate a Browning Society, there are those who find comfort in the legal entanglements of his old Italian law-case. The larger spirits of the past seem to satisfy. ‘I can read,’ said one villager, ‘almost anything but new books. Old men inform,’ he went on with Baconian antithesis, ‘new men disturb.’

The village is little given to litigation. No attorney’s sign may be seen. Years ago we had our last cause celèbrc. It was about a piano. The school-board had purchased an instrument that would not stay in tune. The issue came up when the tuner in despair asked whether the piano was at concert or international pitch. No one knew. The tuner made remarks that led the board to think that they had been swindled. The last payment was refused, and the dealer sued.

The case came to trial before the local justice. The plaintiff’s lawyer, a large man with long hair which he roached up masterfully in his argument, wore a white clerical cravat and long black frock-coat. He listened to witnesses with good-natured tolerance. When our musical expert took the chair, — a timid woman who had never been in court, — the lawyer roused himself. ‘ You say that you are a professional musician and that you know all about pianos. Will you kindly tell this court how many keys there are on this piano that the board bought and refuses to pay for? You cannot? You don’t know how many keys there are on it? You presume to come here, under oath, and pose as a musical expert, and can’t tell how many keys there are on a piano?’ He motioned to his assistant to take down the testimony. ‘Well, perhaps you can tell us the pitch of this piano? You don’t know what pitch it is? Is n’t the pitch of a piano important? You have a piano? You know what pitch it is ? Concert pitch — very good. Now you say you don’t know the pitch of the piano in litigation, and you claim to be a musical expert.’ Again the assistant takes testimony. ‘How old is this piano ? You don’t know that either ? Are n’t you familiar with the types and styles of pianos? You are. You could tell an old piano from a new one? You could; yes, one does n’t have to pretend to be a musical expert or study under Liszt to do that. But you don’t know how old this piano is? How’s that? An obsolete type? Too old to guess at? That’ll do.’

The board won the case, for the clerk deposed that a piano at international pitch had been ordered, and the tuner could not affirm that the piano was at any pitch, or that, if tuned to a pitch, it would stay there over night.

The other case never came to court. A city man had loaned a farmer money, taking a mortgage on the stock and fifteen tons of hay. Late the next spring hay had doubled in value, and with the note unpaid the city man came up to foreclose. He made a satisfied examination of the stock, and then saw that the mow was empty. ‘ Where’s the hay you put up as security?’

‘Well — Igawnteed to keep the stock in good condition, and I fed ’em the hay.’

We do not live on excitement. One or two men are members of city clubs, and are drawn periodically into the feverish and noisy life. Their example is not approved. As none of us makes money, the fine art of living lies in saving what we can. Pleasure is in making an old coat do another year, not in buying a new one. There can be no real enjoyment in paying club dues, smoking expensive cigars, drinking costly drinks, when the wife with intelligent care saves ten cents a pound on coffee, and no one can tell the difference. Nor do our club-men come back apparently benefited: however gay and pleasant clubs may be within, a certain depression always accompanies the man home.

So, in our village, we do without everything the live, active, accomplishing world regards as necessary. We read Gibbon, eat light suppers, and go to bed early. But childhood is still the great miracle with us; angels, we know, live in our houses, and we look out upon a world of misery and pain, grieving that our arms do not reach beyond the village.