oods like ours where men gather in dim
schoolhouses and practice the invisible patriotism of surrender and
service.

XIV

THE HARVEST

"Oh, Universe, what thou wishest, I wish."

--_Marcus Aurelius_

I come to the end of these Adventures with a regret I can scarcely
express. I, at least, have enjoyed them. I began setting them down with
no thought of publication, but for my own enjoyment; the possibility of
a book did not suggest itself until afterwards. I have tried to relate
the experiences of that secret, elusive, invisible life which in every
man is so far more real, so far more important than his visible
activities--the real expression of a life much occupied in other
employment.

When I first came to this farm, I came empty-handed. I was the veritable
pattern of the city-made failure. I believed that life had nothing more
in store for me. I was worn out physically, mentally and, indeed,
morally. I had diligently planned for Success; and I had reaped defeat.
I came here without plans. I plowed and harrowed and planted, expecting
nothing. In due time I began to reap. And it has been a growing marvel
to me, the diverse and unexpected crops that I have produced within
these uneven acres of earth. With sweat I planted corn, and I have here
a crop not only of corn but of happiness and hope. My tilled fields have
miraculously sprung up to friends!

This book is one of the unexpected products of my farm. It is this way
with the farmer. After the work of planting and cultivating, after the
rain has fallen in his fields, after the sun has warmed them, after the
new green leaves have broken the earth--one day he stands looking out
with a certain new joy across his acres (the wind bends and half turns
the long blades of the corn) and there springs up within him a song of
the fields. No matter how little poetic, how little articulate he is,
the song rises irrepressibly in his heart, and he turns aside from his
task with a new glow of fulfillment and contentment. At harvest time in
our country I hear, or I imagine I hear, a sort of chorus rising over
all the hills, and I meet no man who is not, deep down within him, a
singer! So song follows work: so art grows out of life!

And the friends I have made! They have come to me naturally, as the corn
grows in my fields or the wind blows in my trees. Some strange potency
abides within the soil of this earth! When two men stoop (there must be
stooping) and touch it to