“COLUMBUS DAY”

 I would like to know where you are tonight, and what you have been doing all through this “Liberty Day.” With us the day has been cloudy and wet, and just as the sun went down Nature took the liberty of sending a cold, penetrating¹ rain. So here I am before my big fire with a copy of Washington Irving’s “Life of Christopher Columbus.” That seems the proper way to end Columbus Day, for in trying to tell the children about him I found that I did not really know much more than they do about the great discoverer. So here I am back some 400 years in history wondering if any of these pompous² and bigoted³ ways of seeking for new worlds or new methods can be applied⁴ to modern life in New Jersey⁵.

 

My back aches, for I have been digging potatoes all day—and I thought I had graduated from that job some years ago. Perhaps you will say that we should have been out selling Liberty bonds or parading. Personally, I am a poor salesman, and we all subscribed⁶ for our bonds some days ago. There are eight bondholders in this family. The influenza⁷ has left us without labor⁸ except for the children while the school is closed. There are still over 100 barrels of apples to pick, potatoes to dig, plowing⁹ and seeding to be done, and a dozen other jobs all pressing. So I decided¹⁰ to celebrate Liberty Day by digging those Bible School potatoes. We planted a patch of potatoes between rows of young peach trees and promised the crop to the Bible Teachers’ Training School. Last year we tried this, and I put in a few of the latest scientific touches which the experts told us about. The plant lice came in a swarm¹¹ and ruined the patch. We had a few potatoes about the size of marbles. This year we avoided scientific advice, and just planted potatoes in the old-fashioned way. They were not cultivated in the best possible manner, but they made a good crop. So when Liberty Day dawned with a thick, gray mist over the land I decided to get those potatoes out instead of going on the march or singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” From what I read of Columbus I imagine he would have chosen the parade and left the digging to others. The world has taken on new ideas about labor since then.

 

So, after breakfast, Cherry-top and I took our forks and started digging. The soil was damp and the air full of mist and meanness which made me sneeze and cough as we worked on. Happily, out on our hills we are not fined $20 for sneezing outside of a handkerchief, as is the case in New York. If anyone has discovered any poetry or philosophy in the job of digging potatoes he may have the floor. I call it about the most menial job on the farm, and therefore fine discipline for “Liberty Day.” While we were working Philip and the larger boy went by with the team to seed rye. They have thrashed out enough grain by hand, and this is not only ideal weather, but about the last limit for seeding. The land was plowed¹² some two weeks ago, a big crop of ragweed and grass being turned under. If we only had the labor this ground would have been disked twice and then harrowed. As it is, we can only work it once with the spring-tooth. Then Philip goes ahead seeding in the rye by hand, while the boy follows with the Acme¹³ harrow to cover the grain. It is rough seeding and would not answer for wheat, but rye is tough and enduring, and it will imitate Columbus and discover a new world in that decaying mass of ragweed. So I watch the seed sowers travel slowly along the hillside as I dig, and wonder what was doing on this farm 427 years ago, and what will be doing here 100 years hence! Such reflections were the most cheerful mental accompaniment I could find for digging potatoes. They are impractical¹⁴, while digging is the most practical thing on earth!

 

As we dug on a man and woman came up the lane. They came after apples, having engaged them before. The boy went down to attend to them, while I kept on digging. Then the boy came back with two more apple customers. The trouble with us is that we have more customers than apples this year, but these were old patrons, and they were served. The boy finally came back with $41.80 as a result of his trading, and we went at our job with new vigor¹⁵. As we dug along we noticed a curious thing about those potatoes. Here and there was a vine large and strong, and still perfectly¹⁶ green. The great majority of the hills were dead, but those green ones were as vigorous as they were in June. The variety was Green Mountain, and we soon found that on the average these big green vines were producing twice as much as the dead hills. Some of these living vines carried three or four big potatoes. Others had a dozen, with seven or eight of market size, while others had about 16 tubers, mostly small. Just why these vines should act in this way I do not know. There are so many possible reasons that I should have to guess at it, as Columbus did when, as his ship sailed on and on into the west, the compass began to vary. The boy and I decided that here was where we might discover a good strain of Green Mountain on Columbus Day. So we have selected 15 of the best hills. They will be planted, hill by hill, next year and still further selection made. We discarded the hills with only a few big potatoes and also those with many small ones, and selected those with a good number of medium-sized tubers. It may come to nothing, but we will try it. Experience and careful figures show that an ordinary crop of potatoes in this country does not pay. The same is true of a flock of ordinary poultry¹⁷, or a drove of scrub pigs. There is no profit except in well-bred, selected stock. That’s what we think we have in pigs and poultry—perhaps we may get something of the same thing in potatoes.

 

But there is one sure thing about digging potatoes—you work up a great appetite. At noon there came a most welcome parade up the lane. It was not a woman suffrage¹⁸ procession, but Mother, Aunt Eleanor, Rose and the little girls bringing the picnic dinner in baskets and pails. The boy had built a fire up above the Spring and piled stones up around it. By the time I had washed my hands and face in the brook¹⁹ Mother had a frying pan over this fire with slices of bacon sizzling and giving up their fat. When this bacon was brown the slices were taken out and the fat kept on bubbling and dancing. Then Aunt Eleanor cut up slices of Baldwin apples and dropped them into this fat. They tell me Ben Davis is best for this fried-apple performance, but I found no fault with Baldwin as it jumped out of that fat. The chemist will no doubt explain how the bacon fat combined with the acid of the apple, etc., etc., etc. Let him talk; it does him good—but have another fried apple! Men may come and men may go, but they will seldom find more appetizing food or a more perfect balanced ration²⁰ than the Hope Farmers discovered around that fire. There were bread and butter, fried bacon, fried apple, pot cheese and several of our choice Red hen’s eggs boiled hard and chopped fine with a little onion. Of course, eggs are worth good and great money just now, but nothing is too good for an occasion like this. And so, on that cheerless day, sitting around our fire, we all concluded that Columbus did a great thing when he discovered America.

 

But our job was not to be ended by eating fried apples and bacon, pleasant as that occupation is, and when I put out my hand I was obliged to admit that the first faint evidence of rain was beginning. The larger boy went back to his rye seeding, and very soon Tom and Broker²¹ could be seen on the lower farm pounding back and forth²² over the field like gray giants hauling up the guns. All hands went to picking up potatoes. Mother picked two bushels and then had to go back to her housework. Little Rose claimed that she picked up 20 potatoes. Her chief job was to hold on to her throat and ask if it was not time to eat one more of those sweet throat tablets I had in my pocket. The rain slowly developed from mist to good-sized drops. I know what it means to get wet, and in any other cause I would have left the job, but we were there to finish those potatoes, and we stayed by it until they were all picked up. The last barrel or two came up out of the mud, and our hands and feet were surely plastered with common clay—but we finished our job. Then came the boys with Broker and the fruit wagon²³ to carry the crop to the barn. One of these boys had on a rubber coat—the other a sack over his shoulders. They went on up the hill to get a load of apples and on their way back brought down the Bible potatoes, where they will dry out and be ready for delivery. When we got to the barn there was another party after apples.

 

We finished it all at last, dried off before the fire and found ourselves none the worse for the day. In the present condition of my back I would not from choice go to a dance tonight, but that will limber out in time. The fire roars away, the rain taps at the window, and we are safe and warm. We have had our supper, and I suppose I could tell where Aunt Eleanor has hidden a pan of those famous ginger²⁴ cookies. I will make it a one to five chance that I can also find a pan of baked apples. I think I will not reveal the secret publicly at this time. The Food Administrator²⁵ might accuse her of using too much ginger or sweetening! School has been closed on account of the influenza, but the children are still working their “examples,” and I give them a few original sums to work out. Little Rose listens to all this, and finally proposes this one of her own:

 

“If a woman paid three cents at a hospital for a baby, how much would a horse cost?”

 

Personally, I will give that up, and go back to the “Life of Columbus.” The most interesting thing to me is the account of the council of wise men to whom Columbus tried to explain his theories. They told him that since the old philosophers and wise men had not discovered any new world, it was great presumption²⁶ for an ordinary man to claim that there remained any great discovery for him to make. Seems to me I have heard that same argument ever since I was able to read and understand. Perhaps it is well that all who come, like Columbus, with a theory and vision of new worlds must fight and endure and suffer before the slow and prejudiced public will give them a chance. But here comes a message for me to come upstairs and see a strange thing. Little Rose cannot have her own way, and she has gone into a passion altogether too big for her little frame. She will not even let me come near her, and back I come a little sadly to my book and my fire. They are not quite so satisfying as before. But who comes here? It is Mother carrying a very pink and repentant²⁷ morsel²⁸ of humanity—little Rose. She hunts up my electric hearing device and with the ear piece at my ear I hear a trembly little voice saying:

 

“I’s awful sorry!”

 

And that is a fine ending for Liberty Day. Perhaps, like Columbus on that fateful night at the end of his voyage, this little one sees the first faint light of a new world! Who knows?

1 penetrating   

adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的

参考例句：

• He had an extraordinarily penetrating gaze. 他的目光有股异乎寻常的洞察力。
• He examined the man with a penetrating gaze. 他以锐利的目光仔细观察了那个人。

2 pompous   

adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities.他有点自大，自视甚高。
• He is a good man underneath his pompous appearance. 他的外表虽傲慢，其实是个好人。

3 bigoted   

adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的

参考例句：

• He is so bigoted that it is impossible to argue with him.他固执得不可理喻。
• I'll concede you are not as bigoted as some.我承认你不象有些人那么顽固。

4 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

5 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

6 subscribed   

v.捐助( subscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；签署，题词；订阅；同意

参考例句：

• It is not a theory that is commonly subscribed to. 一般人并不赞成这个理论。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I subscribed my name to the document. 我在文件上签了字。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 influenza   

n.流行性感冒，流感

参考例句：

• They took steps to prevent the spread of influenza.他们采取措施
• Influenza is an infectious disease.流感是一种传染病。

8 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

9 plowing   

v.耕( plow的现在分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• "There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. "如今有比耕种更重要的事情要做呀，宝贝儿。 来自飘（部分）
• Since his wife's death, he has been plowing a lonely furrow. 从他妻子死后，他一直过着孤独的生活。 来自辞典例句

10 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

11 swarm   

n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入

参考例句：

• There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
• A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。

12 plowed   

v.耕( plow的过去式和过去分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• They plowed nearly 100,000 acres of virgin moorland. 他们犁了将近10万英亩未开垦的高沼地。 来自辞典例句
• He plowed the land and then sowed the seeds. 他先翻土，然后播种。 来自辞典例句

13 acme   

n.顶点，极点

参考例句：

• His work is considered the acme of cinematic art. 他的作品被认为是电影艺术的巅峰之作。
• Schubert reached the acme of his skill while quite young. 舒伯特的技巧在他十分年轻时即已达到了顶峰。

14 impractical   

adj.不现实的，不实用的，不切实际的

参考例句：

• He was hopelessly impractical when it came to planning new projects.一到规划新项目，他就完全没有了实际操作的能力。
• An entirely rigid system is impractical.一套完全死板的体制是不实际的。

15 vigor   

n.活力，精力，元气

参考例句：

• The choir sang the words out with great vigor.合唱团以极大的热情唱出了歌词。
• She didn't want to be reminded of her beauty or her former vigor.现在，她不愿人们提起她昔日的美丽和以前的精力充沛。

16 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

17 poultry   

n.家禽，禽肉

参考例句：

• There is not much poultry in the shops. 商店里禽肉不太多。
• What do you feed the poultry on? 你们用什么饲料喂养家禽?

18 suffrage   

n.投票，选举权，参政权

参考例句：

• The question of woman suffrage sets them at variance.妇女参政的问题使他们发生争执。
• The voters gave their suffrage to him.投票人都投票选他。

19 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

20 ration   

n.定量(pl.)给养，口粮；vt.定量供应

参考例句：

• The country cut the bread ration last year.那个国家去年削减面包配给量。
• We have to ration the water.我们必须限量用水。

21 broker   

n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排

参考例句：

• He baited the broker by promises of higher commissions.他答应给更高的佣金来引诱那位经纪人。
• I'm a real estate broker.我是不动产经纪人。

22 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

23 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

24 ginger   

n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气

参考例句：

• There is no ginger in the young man.这个年轻人没有精神。
• Ginger shall be hot in the mouth.生姜吃到嘴里总是辣的。

25 administrator   

n.经营管理者，行政官员

参考例句：

• The role of administrator absorbed much of Ben's energy.行政职务耗掉本很多精力。
• He has proved himself capable as administrator.他表现出管理才能。

26 presumption   

n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定

参考例句：

• Please pardon my presumption in writing to you.请原谅我很冒昧地写信给你。
• I don't think that's a false presumption.我认为那并不是错误的推测。

27 repentant   

adj.对…感到悔恨的

参考例句：

• He was repentant when he saw what he'd done.他看到自己的作为，心里悔恨。
• I'll be meek under their coldness and repentant of my evil ways.我愿意乖乖地忍受她们的奚落，忏悔我过去的恶行。

28 morsel   

n.一口，一点点

参考例句：

• He refused to touch a morsel of the food they had brought.他们拿来的东西他一口也不吃。
• The patient has not had a morsel of food since the morning.从早上起病人一直没有进食。