When I climbed the fence I dropped
down in the grass at the far corner of the field. I had looked forward
this year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand--the
adventure of it--after a number of years of horse planting (with
Horace's machine) of far larger fields. There is an indescribable
satisfaction in answering, "Present!" to the roll-call of Nature; to
plant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake
and harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe. It is the chief
joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat
in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his
seasons; its life his life.
Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both
over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the
scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle
of my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my
field on Friday morning--a whole spring day open before me! At that
moment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king,
prince, or president.
At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have
done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the
sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the
flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed
hole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the
kernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the
soil upon the seed.
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