An old farm-house with meadows wide,
And sweet with clover on each side.
MARION DOUGLASS.
I have now come to the farmer’s life, with which I am exceedingly delighted, and which seems to me to belong especially to the life of a wise man.
CICERO.
Weary of boarding at seashore and mountain, tired of traveling in searchof comfort, hating hotel life, I visited a country friend at Gooseville,Conn. (an assumed name for Foxboro, Mass.), and passed three happy weeksin her peaceful home.
Far away at last from the garish horrors of dress, formal dinners,visits, and drives, the inevitable and demoralizing gossip and scandal;far away from hotel piazzas, with their tedious accompaniments ofcorpulent dowagers, exclusive or inquisitive, slowly dying from too muchfood and too little exercise; ennuied spinsters; gushing buds; athleticcollegians, cigarettes in mouths and hands in pockets; languid, drawlingdudes; old bachelors, fluttering around the fair human flower likeSeptember butterflies; fancy work, fancy work, like Penelope’s web,never finished; pug dogs of the aged and asthmatic variety. Everythingthere but MEN—they are wise enough to keep far away.
Before leaving this haven of rest, I heard that the old-fashionedfarm-house just opposite was for sale. And, as purchasers of real estatewere infrequent at Gooseville, it would be rented for forty dollars ayear to any responsible tenant who would “keep it up.”
After examining the house from garret to cellar and looking over thefields with a critical eye, I telegraphed to the owner, fearful oflosing such a prize, that I would take it for three years. For itcaptivated me. The cosy “settin’-room,” with a “pie closet” and an uppertiny cupboard known as a “rum closet” and its pretty fire place—brickedup, but capable of being rescued from such prosaic “desuetude”; a largesunny dining-room, with a brick oven, an oven suggestive of brown breadand baked beans—yes, the baked beans of my childhood, that adorned thebreakfast table on a Sunday morning, cooked with just a little molassesand a square piece of crisp salt pork in center, a dish to tempt a dyinganchorite.
There wore two broad landings on the stairs, the lower one just theplace for an old clock to tick out its impressive“Forever—Never—Never—Forever” à la Longfellow. Then the long “shedchamber” with a wide swinging door opening to the west, framing asunset gorgeous enough to inspire a mummy. And the attic, with itspossible treasures.
There was also a queer little room, dark and mysterious, in the cente