Paine Albert Bigelow
Dwellers in Arcady: The Story of an Abandoned Farm

We picked out a number of things that seemed of special interest, including an iron crane we had found, and carried them down-stairs. The crane fitted the fireplace in the smaller room, which was to become our kitchen. We hung it and kindled a fire – our first real fire, for it was our first cool day. There was litter on the floor, but we did not mind it. We looked into the cheerful blaze, handled over the trifles we had found, and in quiet voices spoke of the past. During our two hours or so in the old attic we had been in step with the generations. We had broken bread at the camp-fire of the pioneer; we had seen him build his house and provide it with the simple, durable furnishings of his day; we had shared the easy comfort of his hearty board; we had drawn near to his good wife as she rocked the cradle or sat spinning in the firelight; we had watched their descendants attain prosperity and a taste for finery; we had seen how they had acquired fashion and in time had patterned their gowns, their bonnets, perhaps even their romances upon models of Lady Maude. They were all gone now, leaving us to carry on the story. We also would go our way; others would follow us, and they, too, would pass. It was a moment to look into the fire and think long, long thoughts.

II
Paper-hanging is not a natural gift

One day I measured up our walls, and the next I went to town and bought the paper that was to cover them. I think it generally pays to do that, provided you can get somebody to hang it. There is a very pretty margin in wall-paper, and when you get a good deal of it that margin gnaws into one's substance. Shopping around the department stores, picking up remnant bargains, is the thing. I ran onto a lot of bedroom paper of a quaint chintzy pattern at four cents a roll, or about one-fifth what it would have cost in the regular way. I took enough of it for all the upper rooms, with some to spare, and was sorry there were not more rooms, so I could take it all. Then I found a gorgeous remnant of the glazed-tile variety for the kitchen, and still another for our prospective bath-room. A dull-green cartridge-paper for our living-room, "best" room, and my tiny study behind the chimney cost me eighteen cents a roll. The total bill was sixteen fifty-nine, and I got at least twice the pleasure out of the size of that bill that I would have had in earning double the sum in the time I spent. Figure out the profit in that transaction if you can. Whatever it was, it was satisfactory, and indeed few things in life are sweeter than the practice of our pet and petty economies. We all have them. I once knew a very rich man who would light a match and race from one gas-jet to another until he burnt his fingers, lighting as many as he could before striking a second match. He would generally say something when his fingers began to smoke, but to have lighted all the jets at both ends of his long room was a triumph that made this brief inconvenience of small account. I have also seen him spend more time, and even money, utilizing some worn-out appliance than a new one would cost. He was not a stingy man, either, not by any means, but those things were ingrained and vital. They helped to provide his life with interest and satisfaction – hence, were worth while.

To go back to the papering: I bought some tools – that is to say, a paste-brush, and a smoothing-down brush, and a long pair of scissors, for I had a suspicion that my painters would be at their fall farming presently, in which case Westbury, who I was satisfied could do anything, had agreed to beautify our walls.

As a matter of fact, I hung most of that sixteen dollars and fifty-nine cents' worth of paper myself. When I got back, my painters were about to begin cutting their corn. Westbury came, but at the end of the first day, when one of the up-stairs rooms was about finished, he also developed a violent interest in corn-cutting. I was thus abandoned to fate, also quite deserted. My carpenters were cutting corn; Luther Merrill, my handsome plowman, was cutting corn; Old Pop and Sam were cutting corn; while Elizabeth had gone to the apartment in town to begin preparations for moving, and to put the Pride and the Hope into school. I was alone – alone with sixteen dollars' worth of paper, a big, flat paste-brush, and my bare, bare walls.

Meantime I had trimmed some of the strips for Westbury and had given some slight attention to his artistic method. It looked rather easy, and there was still half a pail of paste. In some things I am impulsive, even daring. With a steady hand, I measured, cut off, and trimmed a strip of the pretty chintzy paper, laid it face down on the papering-board which Westbury had made, slapped on the paste with a free and business-like dash, folded up the end just as Westbury did, picked it up with an easy, professional swing, and started for the wall.

Being a tall man, I did not need the step-ladder. In those low rooms I could quite easily stand on the floor and paper from the ceiling down. Certainly that was an advantage. I discovered, however, that a step-ladder is not all of a paper-hanger's gifts. When I matched that piece of paper at the ceiling and started down with it, I realized presently that it was not going in the direction of the floor. At least not directly. It was slanting off at a bias to the southeast, leaving a long, lean, wedge-shaped gap between it and the last strip. I pulled it off and started again, shifting the angle. But I overdid the thing. This time it went biasing off in the other direction and left an untidy smudge of paste on Westbury's nice, clean strip. I reflected that this would probably dry out – if not, I would hang a picture over it. Then I gave the strip I was hanging a little twitch, being a trifle annoyed, perhaps, by this time, and was pained to see that an irregular patch of it remained on the wall, while the rest of it fell sloppily into my hands. It appeared that wall-paper became tender with damp paste on it and should not be jerked about in that nervous way. In seeking to remove the ragged piece from the plaster, holding up the mutilated strip meanwhile, something else occurred, I don't quite know what, but I suddenly felt a damp and gluey mess on my face, and then it was around my neck, and then I discovered that a portion of it had in some way got tangled up with my legs, upon which I think I became rather positive, for I seem to have wadded up several gooey balls of chintzy decoration and hurled them through the open window, far out upon the sun-flecked yard.

I went below and washed up, and for a time sat under the maple shade and smoked. When more calm I said: "This is nothing – it is only a first lesson. Paper-hanging requires probationary study and experiment. It is not a natural gift, an extempore thing like authorship and song. I have paper enough to afford another lesson. This time I shall consider deeply and use great care."

I went back and prepared another strip, humbly and without any attempt at style. This time, too, I did not consider the line of the ceiling, but conformed to the vertical edge of Westbury's final strip, allowing my loose section to dangle like a plumb-line several moments before permitting it to get its death-grip on the wall. I will not say that this second attempt was an entire success, but it was a step in that direction. With a little smudging, a slight wrinkle or two, and a small torn place, it would do, and I was really quite pleased with myself when I observed it from across the room and imagined a kindly bureau just about in that spot.

I hung another strip, and another. Some went on very well, some with heavy travail, and with results that made me grateful for our pictures and furniture. Yet it became fascinating work; it was like piecing out some vast picture-puzzle, one that might be of some use when finished. I improved, too. I was several days finishing the up-stairs, and by the time I got it done I had got back some of the dash I started off with. I could slap on the paste and swing the strip to the wall so handily that I was sorry Elizabeth was not there to observe me.

I went below and papered the kitchen. There were a lot of little shelves and cubby-nooks there, but they were only a new and pleasant variation to the picture-puzzle. I did the small room off the kitchen, including the ceiling, which was a new departure and at first discouraging. I was earning probably as much as a dollar and a half a day and I was acquiring at least that much in vanity and satisfaction, besides learning a new trade which might come handy in a day of need. I had some thought of proposing to Westbury a partnership in general paper-hanging and farming, with possibly an annex of antiques.

III
There is nothing I wouldn't do for a bee – a reasonable bee

Matters did not go so well in the living-room. It was not because the old walls were more irregular there than elsewhere – I could negotiate that – it was those pesky bees. Reshingling the sides of the house had closed their outlets, and they had now found a crevice somewhere around the big chimney and were pouring in and out, whizzing and buzzing around the room by the hundred, clinging to the windows in droves, a maddening distraction on a hot afternoon to a man with his head tipped back, in the act of laying a long, flimsy strip of wall-paper on a wavy, billowy old ceiling. They were no longer vicious and dangerous – they were only disorganized and panic-stricken. A hundred times a day I swept quantities of them from the windows and released them to the open air. It was no use to shut the doors, for there still were pecks of them between the floor and ceiling, and these came pouring out steadily, while those that I had dismissed hurried back again as soon as they could get their breath. I began to think we had met disaster in this unexpected quarter – that those persistent little colonists were going to dispossess us altogether.

Old Nat and I had tried smoking them with sulphur, which had quieted them temporarily while the men were shingling, but it had in no way discouraged them. In fact, I think there is nothing that will discourage a bee but sudden death, and that seems a pity, for in his proper sphere he is one of our most useful citizens.

He is so wise, so wonderfully skilled and patient. I have read Maeterlinck's life of him, and there is nothing I would t do for a bee – a reasonable bee – one that would appreciate a little sound advice. That's just the trouble – a bee isn't built that way. He is so smart and capable, and such a wonder in most things, that he won't discuss any matter quietly and see where he is wrong and go his way in peace. Those bees thought that, just because they had found a hole in the outside of an old house, it was their house, and if anybody had to move it wouldn't be they. I explained the situation over and over and begged them to go away while the weather was still warm and the going good, but they just whizzed and raged around the rooms and sickened me with their noise and obstinacy.

When Elizabeth and the Joy came up, school matters being arranged, we decided, among other things, to evict those bees. There was just one way to do it, Westbury said, which was to saw through the floor up-stairs and take them out. He thought there would be some honey. We did not count much on that; what we wanted was to be rid of the pests forever. I sent word to our carpenter, and Henry Jones came one morning with his saws.

In a corner of the upper room where we had heard a great buzzing he bored a hole through the flinty oak floors. I had the smoker ready and pumped the sulphur fumes in pretty freely. Then he began to saw. He had gone only a little way when he said:

"My saw is running in honey."

Sure enough, it was coated with the clear sticky substance, which certainly did not make it run any easier. By hard work he managed to cut across two of the wide boards, and through them again, adjoining the next joist. When he was ready to lift out I pumped a new supply of smoke into the holes, then rather gingerly we pried up the pieces.

What a sight it was! Covered by a myriad of stupefied bees was layer upon layer of pure honey, the frightened insects plunging into the cells, filling themselves with their own merchandise, as is their habit when alarmed. Lazarus, a small colored assistant whom we had recently acquired, peered in cautiously (the sulphur fumes being still suggestive, with a good many bees flying), and I sent him for something to put the honey in – something large, I said – a dishpan.

But Elizabeth had no great faith in our bee investigations, or she may have been inclined to discount Lazarus. She sent a porcelain dish, which I filled with a few choice pieces.

"Tell her this is just a sample, and to send the dishpan."

But still she thought either I or Lazarus was excited, and sent only an agate stew-pan, which I also filled.

"Take it down, Lazarus, and tell her that we still need the dishpan."

So then at last it came up, and we filled that, too.

We were not through, however. There was a heavy buzzing near the center of the room, and again we bored and smoked and sawed, and presently uncovered another swarm, with another surplus stock, this time a wash-boiler full, most of it fine and white, though some of the pieces were discolored, showing age. Elizabeth left her occupations and came up to investigate. Our old house had proven a regular honey-mine. We had enough for an indefinite period, and some for the neighbors. I suppose if we had left an outside hole for those bees they would have gone on multiplying and eventually would have packed our floors and walls solid full of honey, and we should have had, in truth, "the very sweetest house in all the world."

I confess we felt sorry for those poor bees. A quantity of them refused to leave the premises and persisted on squeezing into the house if a door or window was left open. A clot of them formed on an old fence-post – around their queen, perhaps – and would not go away, though they knew quite well we had hardened our hearts against them and would not relent. If I had it to do over again I would bring down an old hive made from a hollow log, which we found up in the attic, and put into it some honey and some comb and invite them to set up business again in a small way. But my wounds were too fresh. They had daubed some of my new paper, driven me nearly frantic with their commotion, and stung me in several localities. The old fence-post was quite loose. In the evening I softly lifted it out, carried it to a remote place, and left it, just as any other heartless person would drop an unwelcome kitten. When I passed that way the following spring they were gone.

A last word about our papering. To this day I am proud of the job and don't wish to dismiss it in any casual way. I left our square "best" room till the last; it made a dramatic ending.

I believe I have not mentioned before that I washed down the old plaster with a solution of vinegar (a remnant from one of Uncle Joe's barrels) in order to kill the lime, which, Westbury said, was bad for the sticking qualities of the paste. Perhaps I made my solution a bit too strong for the "best" – room walls, or it may be that the plaster there was different – I don t know. I know that I worked till nearly midnight to get done, Elizabeth holding a pair of lamps, and that when we came down next morning to admire our beautiful green walls by daylight, they were no longer green – at least, not solidly so, not definitely so. What seemed to us at first a sorrowful mottled complaint in yellow had every-where broken through, and I had the sickening feeling that my work was wasted and must be done over. But presently Elizabeth said, reflectively:

"It isn't so bad just as it is."

And I said, "Why, no! it's a kind of a pattern."

And then we both said, "Why, it's really artistic and beautiful."

And so it was. Over the dull green a large, irregular lacework of dull yellow had spread itself, and the more we looked the better we liked it. Just why the chemical affinity between plaster and paper should produce that particular effect we could not imagine, but there it was and there it stayed, for the process did not go any farther. Later on, when our furniture and pictures were in place, visitors used to say, "Wherever did you get that wonderful paper?" If they were true friends and worthy, we told them. Otherwise we would vaguely hint of a special pattern, and that there was no more to be had of the kind.

IV
There was a place we sometimes visited to see the trout

I suppose about the most beautiful thing in life is novelty. In it is the chief charm of youth and travel and honeymoons. I will not say it is the most valuable thing there is, and it is likely to be about the most transient. But while it lasts it is precious, and inspiring beyond words.

No other autumn could ever be quite like that first one of our new possession, none could ever have the halo and the bloom of novelty that made us revel in all the things we could do and moved us to undertake them all. Days to come would be more peaceful and abundantly satisfying, happier, even, in the fullness of accomplishment, but never again would we know quite the thrill that each day brought during our first golden September at Brook Ridge.

To begin with, it was September, and golden. The rains of August had ceased and their lavish abundance had filled brook and river and left the world a garden of wild aster and goldenrod, with red apples swinging from the trees, massed umbels of dark elderberries, and pink and purple grapes ripening in the sun. Our satisfaction with everything was unbounded. A New England farm, with its brook and springs and gray walls and odd corners, seemed to us, of all possessions, the most desirable. We took long walks through our quiet woods where there were hickory and chestnut trees, and oaks and hemlocks, and slender white birches that were like beautiful spirits, and tall maples, and even apple-trees, wild seedlings, planted by the birds, but thrifty and bearing. We had never seen that in the West. The fruit was not very tender, but well flavored and made delicious sauce.

"Why, it must be the Garden of Eden," we said, "if the apple-tree grows wild!"

We carried baskets and gathered in infinite variety. Apples, hickory-nuts, berries, mushrooms – especially mushrooms, for we were fond of them and had carefully acquainted ourselves with the deadly kinds. Those, by the way, are all that one needs to know. All the others may be eaten. Some of them may taste like gall and wormwood, or living and enduring fire, and an occasional specimen may make the experimenter feel briefly unwell, but if he will acquaint himself with the virulent amanita varieties, and shun them, he will not die – not from poison. I do not guarantee against indigestion.

We would bring home as many as seventeen sorts of those edible toadstools, beautiful things in creamy white, brown, purple, yellow, coral, and vivid scarlet, and get out our Book of a Thousand Kinds, and patiently identify them, tasting for the flavor and sometimes getting a hot one or a bitter one, but often putting as many as a dozen kinds into the chafing-dish. Even if the result was occasionally a bit "woodsy" as to savor, we did not mind much, not in those days of novelty, though Elizabeth did once think she felt a "little dizzy" after an unusually large collection, and I had a qualm or two myself. But when we looked up and found that mushroom poison does not begin to destroy for several hours, we fell to discussing other matters, and did not remember our slight inconvenience until long after we should have been dead, by the book limitation.

There was a gap in the stone wall where we passed from our land into Westbury's, and beyond it an open place that was a mushroom-garden. Green and purple russulas grew there as if they had been planted, beds of coral-hued "Tom Thumbs" that were like strawberries, and a big, bitter variety of boletus, worthless but beautiful, having the size and appearance of a pie – a meringue pie, well browned. A path led to another garden where in a hidden nook we one day discovered a quantity of chanterelles that were like wonderful black morning-glories. It was duskily shaded there, and through the flickering green we noticed a vivid, red spot that was like a flame. We pushed out to it and came upon a tiny, silent brook slipping through a bed of cowslip and water-arum, and at its margin a scarlet cardinal-flower, burning a star upon the afternoon.

There was a place which we sometimes visited to see the trout. You crossed the bean-lot and came to a little secluded land where there were slim cedars and grass and asters and goldenrod, a spot so still and unvisited that it was like a valley that one might find in a dream. Our brook flowed through it and in one place there was a quiet pool and an overhanging rock. Willows and alders sheltered it, and if you slipped through without noise and lay very still, you were pretty sure to see a school of trout, for it was their favorite haunt. Once we counted twenty-two there, lying head up-stream, gently fanning their tails and white-edged fins. They were a handsome lot, ranging in size from eight to twelve inches, and we would not have parted with them for the cost of the farm.

The "precious ones" joined in some of these excursions, but our diversions were too tame for them, as a rule. Wading, racing up and down, tumbling on the hay, with now and then a book in the shade, was more to their liking. When the two older ones had gone to school and the Joy was with us alone, she invented plays of her own, plays in which a capering horse – that is to say, herself – had the star part. Once I found her sitting by a tub of water, sailing a wonderful boat in it – one that she had made for herself, out of a chip and a nail, using a stone for a hammer. She wore one of the antique bonnets brought down from the attic, and seemed lost in contemplation of her handiwork. Without her noticing, I made a photograph. How it carries me back, to-day.

I have mentioned our varied undertakings. When wild grapes ripened on the roadside walls – the big, fragrant wild grapes of New England – we made a real business of gathering them. They were in endless quantity, three colors – pink, purple, and white – and their rich odor betrayed them. Placing some stones in the brook one afternoon, I became conscious of a thick wave of that sweet perfume, and, looking up, discovered a natural trellis of clusters just above my head. I don't know how many bushels we gathered in all, or how many quarts of jelly and jam and sweet wine we made. I found in the attic, which we named our "Swiss Family Robinson," because it was provided with everything we needed, an old pair of "pressers," and squeezed out grape juice and elderberry juice and blackberry juice, while Elizabeth stirred and boiled and put away, for we were New England farmers now, and were going to do all the things, and have preserves and nuts and apples laid away for winter. How we worked – played, I mean, for with novelty one does not work, but becomes a child again, and plays. And the more toys we can find, and the longer we can make each one last, the happier and better and younger we shall be.