More Jonathan Papers Part 11

Lets not get confused

Im not confused, said Jonathan.

Well, I shall be in a minute if I dont look out. You cant follow a parallel too far. What I mean is, that if you run away from one kind of complexity you run into another kind.

What are you going to do about it?

Im going to like it all, I answered, and make believe I meant to do it.

After that we were silent awhile. Then I tried again. You know your trick of waltzing with a gla.s.s of water on your head?

Yes.

Well, I wonder if we couldnt do that with our souls.

That suggests to me a rather curious picture, said Jonathan.

Wellyou know what I mean. When you do that, your body takes up all the jolts and jiggles before they get to the top of your head, so the gla.s.s stays quiet.

Well

Well, I dont see whyonly, of course, our souls arent really anything like gla.s.ses of water, and it would be perfectly detestable to think of carrying them around carefully like that.

Perhaps youd better back out of that figure of speech, suggested Jonathan. Go back to your princess. Say, every man his own mattress.

No. Any figure is wrong. The trouble with all of them is that as soon as you use one it begins to get in your way, and say all sorts of things for you that you never meant at all. And then if you notice it, it bothers you, and if you dont notice it, you get drawn into crooked thinking.

And yet you cant think without them.

No, you cant think without them.

Wellwhere are we, anyway? he asked placidly.

I dont know at all. Only I feel sure that leading the simple life doesnt depend on the things you do it _with_. Feeding your own cows and pigs and using pumps and candles brings you no nearer to it than marketing by telephone and using city water supply and electric lighting. I dont know what does bring you nearer, but Im sure it must be something inside you.

That sounds rather reasonable, said Jonathan; almost scriptural

Yes, I know, I said.

IV

After Frost

It is late afternoon in mid-September. I stand in my garden sniffing the raw air, and wondering, as always at this season, _will_ there be frost to-night or will there not? Of course if I were a woodchuck or a muskrat, or any other really intelligent creature, I should know at once and act accordingly, but being only a stupid human being, I am thrown back on conjecture, a.s.sisted by the thermometer, and an appeal to Jonathan.

Too much wind for frost, says he.

Sure? Id hate to lose my nasturtiums quite so early.

You wont lose em. Look at the thermometer if you dont believe me. If its above forty youre safe.

I look, and try to feel rea.s.sured. But I am not quite easy in my mind until next morning when, running out before breakfast, I make the rounds and find everything untouched.

But a few days later the alarm comes again. There is no wind this time, and, what is worse, an ominous silence falls at dusk over the orchard and meadow. Why is everything so still? I ask myself. Oh, of coursethe katydids arent talkingand the crickets, and all the other whirr-y things. Ah! That means business! My poor garden!

Jonathan! I call, as I feel rather than see his shape whirling noiselessly in at the big gate after his ride up from the station. Help me cover my nasturtiums. Therell be frost to-night.

Maybe, says Jonathans voice.

Not maybe at allsurely. Listen to the katydids!

You mean, listen to the absence of katydids.

Very well. The point is, I want newspapers.

No. The point is, I am to bring newspapers.

Exactly.

And tuck up your nasturtiums for the night in your peculiarly ridiculous fas.h.i.+on

I know it looks ridiculous, but really its sensible. There may be weeks of summer after this.

And so the nasturtiums are tucked up, cozily hidden under the big layers of sheets, whose corners we fasten down with stones. To be sure, the garden _is_ rather a funny sight, with these pale shapes sprawling over its beds. But it pays. For in the morning, though over in the vegetable garden the squash leaves and lima beans are blackened and limp, my nasturtiums are still pert and crisp. I pull off the papers, wondering what the pa.s.sers-by have thought, and lo! my gay garden, good for perhaps two weeks more!

But a day arrives when even newspaper coddling is of no avail. Sometimes it is in late September, sometimes not until October, but when it comes there is no resisting.

The sun goes down, leaving a clear sky paling to green at the horizon. A still cold falls upon the world, and I feel that it is the end. Shears in hand, I cut everything I cannasturtiums down to the ground,leaves, buds, and all,feathery sprays of cosmos, asters by the armful. Those last bouquets that I bring into the house are always the most beautiful, for I do not have to save buds for later cutting. There will, alas, be no later cutting.

So I fill my bowls and vases, and next morning I go out, well knowing what I shall see. It is a beautiful sight, too, if one can forget its meaning.

The whole golden-green world of autumn has been touched with silver. In the low-lying swamp beyond the orchard it is almost like a light snowfall.

The meadows rising beyond the barns are silvered over wherever the long tree-shadows still lie. And in my garden, too, where the shadows linger, every leaf is frosted, but as soon as the sun warms them through, leaf and twig turn dark and droop to the ground. It is the end.

Except, indeed, for my brave marigolds and calendulas and little b.u.t.ton asters. It is for this reason that I have given them s.p.a.ce all summer, nipping them back when they tried to blossom early, for they seem a bit crude compared with the other flowers. But now that frost is here, my feelings warm to them. I cannot criticize their color and texture, so grateful am I to them for not giving up. And when last nights cuttings have faded, I shall be very glad of a glowing ma.s.s of marigold beside my fireplace, and of the yellow stars of calendula, like embodied suns.h.i.+ne, on my dining-table.

Well, then, the frost has come! And after the first pang of realization, I find that, curiously enough, the worst is over. Since it has come, let it come! And nowhurrah for the garden house-cleaning! The garden is deadthe garden of yesterday! Long live the gardenthe garden of to-morrow! For suddenly my mind has leaped ahead to spring.

I can hardly wait for breakfast to be over, before I am out in working clothes, pulling up thingsnot weeds now, but flowers, or what were flowers. Nasturtiums, asters, cosmos, snapdragon, stock, late-blooming cornflowersup they all come, all the annuals, and the biennials that have had their season. I fling them together in piles, and soon have small haystacks all along my gra.s.s paths, andthere I am! Down again to the good brown earth!

It is with positive satisfaction that I stand and survey my beds, great bare patches of earth, glorified here and there by low clumps of calendula and great bushes of marigold. Now, then! I can do anything! I can dig, and fertilize, and transplant. Best of all, I can plan and plan! The crisp wind stings my cheeks, but as I work I feel the sun hot on the back of my neck. I get the smell of the earth as I turn it over, mingled with the pungent tang of marigold blossoms, very pleasant out of doors, though almost too strong for the house except near a fireplace. I believe the most characteristic fall odors are to me this of marigold, mingled with the fragrance of apples piled in the orchard, the good smell of earth newly turned up, and the flavor of burning leaves, borne now and then on the wind, from the outdoor house-cleaning of the world.

There is perhaps no season of all the garden year that brings more real delight to the gardener, no time so stimulating to the imagination. This year in the garden has been good, but next year shall be better. All the failures, or near-failures, shall of course be turned into successes, and the successes shall be bettered. Last year there were not quite enough hollyhocks, but next year there shall be such glories! There are seedlings that I have been saving, over on the edge of the phlox. I dash across to look them upyes, here they are, splendid little fellows, leaves only a bit crumpled by the frost. I dig them up carefully, keeping earth packed about their roots, and one by one I convey them across and set them out in a beautiful row where I want them to grow next year. Their place is beside the old stone-flagged path, and I picture them rising tall against the side of the woodshed, whose barrenness I have besides more than half covered with honeysuckle.