Autumn

On Sunday the church bells of Hillsboro rang out across the ripening fields with a grave and holy sound, and again at evening knocked faintly, with quiet sorrow, at doors where children watched for the first star, to make their wishes. Night came, and to the croaking of frogs, the moon rose over Barly Hill. In the early morning the grass, still wet with dew, chilled the bare toes of urchins on their way to school where, until four o'clock, the tranquil voice of Mr. Jeminy disputed with the hum of bees, and the far off clink of the blacksmith's forge in the village.

At four o'clock Mr. Jeminy, with a sigh, gathered his books together. He sighed because he was old, and because the day's work was done. He arose from his seat, and taking up his stick, passed out between the benches and went slowly down the road.

It was a warm spring day; the air was drowsy and filled with the scent of flowers. A thrush sang in the woods, where Mr. Jeminy heard before him the light voices of children. He thought: "How happy they are." And he smiled at his own fancies which, like himself, were timid and kind.

But gradually, as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, he grew sad. It seemed to him as if the world, strange and contrary during the day, were again as it used to be when he was young.

When he crossed the wooden bridge over Barly Water, the minnows, frightened, fled away in shoals. Mr. Jeminy turned down toward the village, where he had an errand to attend to. As his footsteps died away, the minnows swam back again, as though nothing had happened. One, larger than the rest, found a piece of bread which had fallen into the water. "This is my bread," he said, and gazed angrily at his friends, who were trying to bite him. "I deserve this bread," he added.

Old Mr. Frye kept the general store in Hillsboro, and ran the post office. It was easy to see that he was an honest man; he kept his shop tidy, and was sour to everybody. Through his square spectacles he saw his neighbors in the form of fruits, vegetables, stick pins, and pieces of calico. Of Mr. Jeminy he used to say: "Sweet apples, but small, very small; small and sweet."

"Yes," said Farmer Barly, "but just tell me, who wants small apples?"

Mr. Frye nodded his head. "Ah, that's it," he agreed.

At that moment Mr. Jeminy himself entered the store. "I'd like to buy a pencil," he said. "The pencil I have in mind," he explained, "is soft, and writes easily, but has no eraser."

"There you are," said the storekeeper; "that's five cents."

"I used to pay four," said Mr. Jeminy, looking for the extra penny.

"Well, perhaps you did," said Mr. Frye, "but prices are very high now."

And he moved away to register the sale.

Farmer Barly, who was a member of the school board, cleared his throat, and blew on his nose. "Hem," he remarked. "Good-day."

"Good-day," said Mr. Jeminy politely, and went out of the store with his pencil. Left to themselves, Mr. Frye and Mr. Barly began to discuss him. "Jeminy is growing old," said Mr. Frye, with a shake of his head.

Mr. Barly, although stupid, liked to be direct. "I was brought up on plus and minus," he said, "and I've yet to meet the man who can get the better of me. Now what do you think of that, Mr. Frye?"

Mr. Frye looked up, down, and around; then he began to polish his spectacles. But he only said, "There's some good in that."

"There is indeed," said Mr. Barly, closing one eye, and nodding his head a number of times. "There is indeed. But those days are over, Mr. Frye. When I was a child I had the fear of God put into me. It was put into me with a birch rod. But nowadays, Mr. Frye, the children neglect their sums, and grow up wild as nettles. I don't know what they're learning nowadays."

And he blew his nose again, as though to say, "What a pity."

"Ah," said Mr. Frye, wisely, "there's no good in that."

Mr. Jeminy knew his own faults, and what was expected of him: he was not severe enough. As he walked home that evening, he said to himself: "I must be more severe; my pupils tease each other almost under my nose. To-day as I wrote sums on the black-board, I watched out of the corner of my eye. . . . Still, a tweaked ear is soon mended. And it's true that when they learn to add and subtract, they will do each other more harm."

The schoolmaster lived in a cottage on the hill overlooking the village. He lived alone, except for Mrs. Grumble, who kept house for him, and managed his affairs. Although they were simple, and easy to manage, they afforded her endless opportunities for complaint. She was never so happy as when nothing suited her. Then she carried her broom into Mr. Jeminy's study, and looked around her with a gloomy air. "No, really, it's impossible to go on this way," she would say, and sweep Mr. Jeminy, his books and his papers, out of doors.

There, in the company of Boethius, he often considered the world, and watched, from above, the gradual life of the village. He heard the occasional tonk of cows on the hillside, the creak of a cart on the road, the faint sound of voices, blown by the wind. From his threshold he saw the afternoon fade into evening, and night look down across the hills, among the stars. He saw the lights come out in the valley, one by one through the mist, smelled the fresh, sweet air of evening; and promptly each night at seven, far off and sad, rolling among the hills, he heard the ghostly hooting of the night freight, leaving Milford Junction.

"Here," he said to himself, "within this circle of hills, is to be found faith, virtue, passion, and good sense. In this valley youth is not without courage, or age without wisdom. Yet age, although wise, is full of sorrow."

While he was musing in this vein, the odor of frying bacon from the kitchen, warmed his nose. So he was not surprised to see Mrs. Grumble appear in the doorway soon afterward. "Your supper is ready," she said; "if you don't come in at once it will grow cold."

For supper, Mr. Jeminy had a bowl of soup, a glass of milk, bacon, potatoes, and a loaf of bread. When Mrs. Grumble was seated, he bent his head, and said: "Let us give thanks to God for this manifestation of His bounty."

During the meal Mrs. Grumble was silent. But Mr. Jeminy could see that she had something important to say. At last she remarked, "As I was on my way to the village, I met Mrs. Barly. She said, 'You'll have to buy your own milk after this, Mrs. Grumble.' I just stood and looked at her."

Mr. Jeminy nodded his head. "I am not surprised," he said. And, indeed, it did not surprise him. Now that the war was over, the neighbors no longer came to his cottage with gifts of vegetables, fruit, and milk. Mrs. Grumble looked at him thoughtfully, and while she washed the plates at the kitchen sink, sighed from the bottom of her soul. Although she liked Mr. Jeminy who, she declared, was a good man, she felt, nevertheless, that in his company her talents were wasted. "It is impossible to talk to Mr. Jeminy," she told Miss Beal, the dress-maker, "because he talks so much."

It was true; Mr. Jeminy liked to talk a great deal. But his conversation, which was often about such people as St. Francis, or Plotinus, did not seem very lively to Mrs. Grumble. "He talks about nothing but the dead," she said to Miss Beal; "mostly heathen."

"No," said Miss Beal. "How aggravating."

Now, Mr. Jeminy, unheeding the sighs of his housekeeper, continued: "But after all, I would not change places with Farmer Barly. For riches are a source of trouble, Mrs. Grumble; they crowd love out of the heart. A man is only to be envied who desires little."

"It is always the same," said Mrs. Grumble; "the rich have their pleasures, and the poor people their sorrows."

"That," said Mr. Jeminy, "is the mistake of ignorance. For Epictetus was a slave, and Saint Peter was a fisherman. They were poor; but they did not consider themselves unfortunate. More to be pitied than either Saint Peter or Epictetus, was Croesus, King of Lydia, who was probably not as rich as Mr. Gary. But he knew how to use his wealth. Therefore he was all the more disappointed when it was taken away from him by Cyrus, the Persian. No, Mrs. Grumble, what you can lose is no great good to any one.

"If you wish," he added, "I will dry the dishes, and you can spend the evening in the village."

As he stood above the sink, rubbing the dishes with a damp cloth, he thought: "When I die, I should like it said of me: By his own efforts, he remained a poor man." And he stood still, the dishtowel in his hand, thinking of that wealthy iron-master, whose epitaph is said to read: Here lies a man who knew how to enlist in his service better men than himself.

When the dishes were dried, Mr. Jeminy retired to his den. This little room, from whose windows it was possible to see the sky above Barly Hill, blue as a cornflower, boasted a desk, an old leather chair, and several shelves of books, among them volumes of history and travel, a King James' Bible, Arrian's Epictetus, Sabatier's life of Saint Francis, the Meditations of Antoninus, bound in paper, and a Jervas translation of Don Quixote. Here Mr. Jeminy was at home; in the evening he smoked his pipe, and read from the pages of Cervantes, whose humor, gentle and austere, comforted his mind so often vexed by the negligence of his pupils.

On the evening of which I am speaking, Mr. Jeminy knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and taking from his desk a bundle of papers, began to correct his pupils' exercises. He was still engaged at this task when Mr. Tomkins came to call.

"A fine evening," said Mr. Tomkins from the doorway.

"Come in, William," cried Mr. Jeminy, "come in. A fine evening, indeed. Well, this is very nice, I must say."

Mr. Tomkins was older than Mr. Jeminy. His once great frame was dried and bent; his face was lined with a thousand wrinkles, and his lips were drawn tight under the nose, until nose and chin almost met. But his eyes were bright and active. Now he sat in Mr. Jeminy's study, his large, knobbly hands, brown and withered as leaves in autumn, grasping his hat.

"Another year, Jeminy," he said, in a voice shrill with age, "another year. Time to shingle old man Crabbe's roof again. I'm spry yet." And resting a lean finger alongside his nose, he gave sound to a laugh like a peal of broken bells.

In his old age Mr. Tomkins was still agile; he crawled out on a roof, ripped up rotted shingles, and put down new ones in their place. To see him climb to the top of a ladder, filled Mr. Jeminy with anxiety.

"You'll die," he said, "with a hammer in your hand."

"Then," said Mr. Tomkins, "I'll die as I've lived."

"That's strange enough," said Mr. Jeminy, "when you come to think of it. For men are born into this world hungry and crying. But they die in silence and slip away without touching anything."

Mr. Tomkins cleared his throat, and watched his fingers run around his hat's brim. He wanted to tell Mr. Jeminy some news; but it occurred to him that it was no more than a rumor. Finally he said: "There's a new school-ma'am over to North Adams." He cocked his head sidewise to look at the schoolmaster. "She knows more than you, Jeminy," he said.

Mr. Jeminy sat bowed and still, his hands folded in his lap. He remembered how he had come to Hillsboro thirty years before, a young man full of plans and fancies. He was soon to learn that what had been good enough for Great Grandfather Ploughman, was thought to be good enough for his grandson, also. Mr. Jeminy remained in Hillsboro, at first out of hope, later out of habit. At last it seemed to him as if Hillsboro were his home. "Where else should I go?" he had asked himself. "Here is all I have in the world. Here are my only friends. Well, after all," he said to himself more than once, "I am not wasted here, exactly." And he tried to comfort himself with this reflection.

He had started out to build a new school in the wilderness. "I shall teach my pupils something more than plus and minus," he declared. He remembered a little verse he used to sing in those days:

Laws, manuals,

And texts incline us

To cheat with plus

And rob with minus.

But it had all slipped away, like sand through his fingers. Now he hoped to find one child to whom he could say what was in his mind.

One by one the brighter boys had drifted off to the county schools, leaving the little schoolhouse to the dull and to the young. Some were taken out of classes early, and added, like another pig, to the farms. Girls, when they were old enough, were kept at home to help their mothers; after a while they, too, married; then their education was over. In the winter they nailed the windows shut; in the summer they worked with the men, hoarded their pennies, and prayed to God at first, but only wished at last, to do better than their neighbors.

Of all whom Mr. Jeminy had taught reading, writing and arithmetic, not one was either better or happier than in childhood.

"Not one," said Mr. Jeminy, "is tidy of mind, or humble of heart. Not one has learned to be happy in poverty, or gentle in good fortune."

"There's no poverty to-day," said Mr. Tomkins simply. It really seemed to him as though every one were well off, because the war was over.

"There is more poverty to-day than ever before," said Mr. Jeminy.

"Hm," said Mr. Tomkins.

"Last fall," said Mr. Jeminy, "Sara Barly and Mrs. Grumble helped each other put up vegetables. And Anna Barly came to my cottage, holding out her apron, full of apples."

"My wife, too," said Mr. Tomkins, "put up a great many vegetables."

"But to-day," said Mr. Jeminy, "Mrs. Barly and Mrs. Grumble pass each other without speaking. And because we are no longer at war, the bit of land belonging to Ezra Adams, where, last spring, Mrs. Wicket planted her rows of corn, is left to grow its mouthful of hay, to sell to Mr. Frye."

"Ah," said Mr. Tomkins wisely, "that's it. Well, Mrs. Wicket, now.

Still," he added, "he'll have a lot of nettles in that hay."

"The rich," Mr. Jeminy continued, "quarrel with the poor, and the poor, by way of answer, with rich and poor alike. And rich or poor, every man reaches for more, like a child at table. That is why, William, there is poverty to-day; poverty of the heart, of the mind, and of the spirit.

"And yet," he added stoutly a moment later, "I'll not deny there is plenty of light; yes, we are wise enough, there is love in our hearts . . . Perhaps, William, heaven will be found when old men like you and me, who have lost our way, are dead."

"Lost our way?" quavered Mr. Tomkins, "lost our way? What are you talking about, Jeminy?"

But the fire, burning so brightly before, was almost out. "Youth," said Mr. Jeminy sadly . . . And he sat quite still, staring straight ahead of him.

"Well," said Mr. Tomkins, "I'll be stepping on home." Clapping his hat somewhat uncertainly onto his head, he rose to go. Mr. Jeminy accompanied him to the door.

"Good-night," he said.

"Good-night," said Mr. Tomkins. And off he went along the path, to tell his wife, as he got into bed, that she was a lucky woman. But Mr. Jeminy stood in the doorway, gazing out across the hills, like David over Hebron. Below him the last late lanterns of the village burned in the valley. He heard the shrill kreef kreedn kreedn of the tree frogs, the cheep of crickets, the lonely barking of a dog, ghostly and far away; he breathed the air of night, cold, and sweet with honeysuckle. Age was in bed; only the young moved and whispered in the shadows; youth, obscure and immortal; love and hope, love and sorrow. From the meadows ascended the choir of cicada: katy did, katy didn't, katy did. . . .

Mr. Jeminy turned and went indoors.