Driven Back to Eden quotes

“What are you going to do? What makes you look at him so?”

“He’s a problem I can’t solve⁠—with the given conditions.”

“O Robert, you drive me half wild. If the house was on fire you’d stop to follow out some train of thought about it all. I’m tired to death. Do bring the children home.

These details seem very homely no doubt, yet such as these largely make up our lives. Comfort or discomfort, happiness or unhappiness, springs from them.

There is no crop in the country so important as that of boys and girls. How could I manage my little home garden in a flat?

I looked thoughtfully from one to another, as with children’s appetites they became absorbed in one of the chief events of the day.

The children could not step outside the door without danger of meeting someone who would do them harm.

It is the curse of crowded city life that there is so little of a natural and attractive sort for a child to do, and so much of evil close at hand.

My wife asked me humorously for the news. She saw that I was not reading my paper, and my frowning brow and firm lips proved my problem was not of a trifling nature.

The children would grow sturdy and strong; much of their work would be like play to them; they wouldn’t be always in contact with other children that we know nothing about.

I am aware that the country isn’t Eden, as we have imagined it⁠—for I lived there as a boy⁠—but it seems like Eden compared to this place and its surroundings; and I feel as if I were being driven back to it by circumstances I can’t control.

”

and I went home feeling as if I had solid ground under my feet. At supper I went over the whole scene, taking off the man in humorous pantomime, not ridicule, and even my wife grew hilarious over her disappointed hopes of the “newfangled truck.”

I managed, however, that the children should not lose the lesson that a rough diamond is better than a smooth paste stone, and that people often do themselves an injury when they take offence too easily.

“I see it all, papa,” chuckled Merton; “if you had gone off mad when he the same as called you a fool, you would have lost all his good advice.”

“That’s sensible,” remarked Mr. Jones, who followed me with no trace of anxiety or impatience.

“Paint, putty, and pine will make a house in a few weeks, but it takes a good slice out of a century to build up an orchard like that.”

“That was just what I was thinking, Mr. Jones.”

I soon observed that he was making acquaintances here and there, and asking questions which would go far to make good his loss of schooling for a time.

Finding out about what one sees is, in my belief, one of the best ways of getting an education. The trouble with most of us is that we accept what we see, without inquiry or knowledge.

The children were much interested in scenes witnessed from the side of the boat farthest from the wharf.

“Oh, I wish we had stayed anywhere under shelter,” said my wife.

“Courage,” I cried. “When we get home, we’ll laugh over this.”

“Now,” shouted Mr. Jones, “veer gradually off to the left toward my voice—all right;” and we jogged on again, stopping from time to time to let our invisible guide explore the road.

“This is different from the Eden of which we have been dreaming,” I thought grimly. Then I shouted, “How much farther, Mr. Jones?”

The howling of the wind was my only answer. I shouted again. The increasing violence of the tempest was the only response.

“Robert,” cried my wife, “I don’t hear Mr. Jones’s voice.”

All that the poets from the beginning of time have written about light could not express my joy as I saw that glimmer approaching on the left.

Before it appeared I had been awed by the tempest, benumbed with cold, shivering in my wet clothes, and a prey to many terrible fears and surmises; but now I cried, “Cheer up; here comes a light.”

There was a chorus of delighted cries. Merton half tumbled over me in his eagerness to get down. A door opened, and out poured a cheerful glow. Oh the delicious sense of safety and warmth given by it already!

I seized Mousie, floundered through the snow up to my knees, and placed her in a big rocking chair.

Mr. Jones followed with Winnie, and Merton came in with Bobsey on his back. The little fellow was under such headway in crying that he couldn’t stop at once, although his tears were rapidly giving place to laughter.

And all were quickly satisfied. Even Mousie said it was “too watery,” and Winnie made a face as she exclaimed, “I declare, Merton, I believe you filled the pails from the brook!”

“Patience, youngsters; sap, as well as some other things, is better for boiling down.”

“Oh what a remarkable truth!” said my wife, who never lost a chance to give me a little dig.

“A brown study! What theory have you struck now, Robert?”

“I was thinking how some women kept their husbands in love with them by being saucy. It’s an odd way, and yet it seems effective.”

“It depends upon the kind of sauce, Robert,” she said with a knowing glance and a nod.

“Show your courage, Merton, when there is need of it,” I said.

“Rash venturing is not bravery, but foolishness, and often costs people dear.”

When the pile sank down into glowing embers, I turned to Bobsey, and added: “I have let you light a fire under my direction.

Indeed, I had Merton write out most of the items, even though the record, as a result, was not very neat. I stopped his worrying over blots and errors, by saying,

“You are of more account than the account book, and will learn by practice to be as accurate as anyone.”

My wife and Mousie also started another book of household expenses, that we might always know just where we stood and what our prospects were.

Then I asked: “Isn’t this better than a city flat and a noisy street? Are not these birds pleasanter neighbors than the Daggetts and the Ricketts?”

Her glad smile was more eloquent than words could have been.

Mousie came running to us, holding in her hand, which trembled from excitement, a little bunch of liverworts and anemones. Tears of happiness actually stood in her eyes, and she could only falter, “O mamma! just look!” and then she hastened away to gather more.

Nor were Mousie’s flowering plants forgotten. She had watched over them from the seed with tireless care, and now we made a bed and helped the happy child to put her little nurslings in the open ground where they were to bloom.

The apple trees made the air fragrant, and some of the delicate pink of their blossoms was in Mousie’s cheeks.

“Truly,” I thought, as I looked into her sparkling eyes, “if we can but barely live in the country, I am glad we came.”

In five minutes he was fast asleep. I threw my coat over him, and sat down, proposing to have a half hour’s rest myself. My wife came out with a pitcher of cool buttermilk and nodded her head approvingly at us.

“Well, my thoughtful Eve,” I said, “I find that our modern Eden will cost a great many backaches.”

“If you will only be prudent like this, you may save me a heartache. Robert, you are ambitious, and unused to this kind of work. Please don’t ever be so foolish as to forget the comparative value of vegetables and yourselves.

Robert, you are ambitious, and unused to this kind of work. Please don’t ever be so foolish as to forget the comparative value of vegetables and yourselves. Honestly now” (with one of her saucy looks),

“I’d rather do with a few bushels less, than do without you and Merton;”

and she sat down and kept me idle for an hour.

The birdsongs seemed almost ecstatic, and the voices of the children, permitted at last to go out of doors, vied with them in gladness.

“Let July and August⁠—yes, and bleak January⁠—bring what they may,” I said to my wife, “nevertheless, this is Eden.”

In spite of the muddy walks, we picked our way around the garden, exclaiming in pleased wonder at the growth made by our vegetable nurslings in a few brief hours, while, across the field, the corn and potato rows showed green, strong outlines.

“Stop!” I thundered. My neighbors closed around me, and he instinctively drew back.

“Bagley,” I cried, “look me in the eye.”

And he fixed upon me a gaze full of impotent anger. “Now,” I resumed, “I wish you and your family to understand that you’ve come to the end of your rope.

The man showed his emotion by a slight tremor only, and after a moment’s thoughtful hesitation he took my hand and said, in a hoarse, choking voice:

“You’ve got a claim on me now which all the rest couldn’t git, even if they put a rope around my neck. I s’pose I have lived like a brute, but I’ve been treated like one, too.”

“If you’ll do as I say, I’ll guarantee that within six months you’ll be receiving all the kindness that a self-respecting man wants,” I answered.

“No, no!” I said, firmly.

“I’m not going to give you a penny’s worth of anything while you are able to earn a living. You shall have food at once; but I shall expect you to pay for it in work. I am going to treat you like a man and a woman, and not like beggars.”

A few minutes later, some of the neighbors were much surprised to see Bagley and myself going up the road together.

“And a city greenhorn of a man at the head of you all,” I concluded.

“Well,” she replied, rising with an odd little blending of laugh and yawn, “I’m not afraid but that we shall all earn our salt.”

Thus came to an end the long, eventful day, which prepared the way for many others of similar character, and suggested many of the conditions of our problem of country living.

I clapped the boy on the shoulder as I said: “You acted like a man in the emergency, and I’m proud of you.

The bringing out a young fellow strong is almost worth the cost of a barn.

”

This I explained in such a way that all except Bobsey saw the wisdom of it, or, rather, the necessity. As yet,

Bobsey’s tendencies were those of a consumer, and not of a producer or saver.

Rollins and one or two others came the next day, and with Bagley’s help the corn was soon in the ground.

also the superb carriage horses, and the sleek, strong work animals. Their stalls were finely finished in Georgia pine. Soon afterward, Bobsey went wild over the fat little Essex pigs, black as coals, but making the whitest and sweetest of pork.

“Possess your soul in patience, Bobsey,” I said.

“With our barn, I am going to make a sty, and then we will have some pigs.”

“Well,” I replied, “I feel as you do.

I never should have made a great merchant in town, and I am content to be a small farmer in the country, sailing close to shore in snug canvas, with no danger of sudden wreck keeping me awake nights.

The insurance money will be available in a few days, and we shall begin building at once.”

“I have a proposition to make to you and Junior. I’d like you both to promise not to shoot robins except on the wing. That will teach you to be expert and quick-eyed.

A true sportsman is not one who tries to kill as much game as possible, but to kill scientifically, skilfully.

There is more pleasure in giving your game a chance, and in bringing it down with a fine long shot, than in slaughtering the poor creatures like chickens in a coop.