Great Possessions

pprehending my possessio

sk winter days, I like to walk across the fields to Horace's farm. I take a new way e

on struggling through the snow whe

ne take a beaten road when there are

enter by the cow lane, sometimes by way of the old road through the wood-lot, or I appear casually, like a gust of wind, around the corner of the barn, or I let Horace discover me leaning with folded arms upon his cattle fence. I have come to love doing t

ugh so much better than I can, that his corn grows taller than mine, and his hens lay more eggs. He is a wonderfully practical man, is Horace; hard-headed, they call it here. And he never feels so superior, I think, as when he finds me sometimes of a Sunday or an evening

ies, the purple fleabane, and the buttercups made a wild tangle of beauty among the tall herd's grass. Light airs moved billowing across the field, bobolinks and meadow larks were singing, and all about were the old fences, each with its wild he

think he had been observing me with amusement for some time before I saw him, fo

he, "what ye

g my crops

to see if I was joking,

tin' ye

upon me, "and just now I've been taking

o indicate his hi

t I o

here, I've quietly acquired an undivided interest in that land. I may as well t

ne I use when I sell potatoes. Horace's smile wholly dis

What do you mean? That field came dow

at Horace with great

dfather Jamieson nor your father ever owned all of that field. And I've now acqu

hat any one could get away from him anything that he posse

ou mean, M

Mister." In our country when we "Mister" a friend something seri

orace rather coldly a

d a share in that field whic

ok inherited from generations of land-owning, home-defendin

already had two or thre

cut the rowen every year since you bin here. Wh

ingers on the t

I've got my crops, also, from tha

t cr

hat do you think of the value of the fleabane, and t

said

u observed the wind in the grass-and those shado

said

'm taking that crop now, and later I shall gather in the rowen of goldenrod and aster, and th

er of my eye that mighty things were going on inside of Horace; and suddenly he

all!" sai

w enjoyment, he was unwilling to take them, but was content with hay. It is a strange thing to me, and a sad one, how many of our farmers (and be it s

d to joke me about my crops and his. A j

nk that's your

t you can have all I've taken, and the

s one crop ye don't git, David," and he'd tap his pocket where he carries

But there never was a greater mistake. While men will haggle to the penny over the price of hay, or fight for a cent more to the bushel of oats, they wi

ard, when we had been thus bantering each

did you get for yo

ece," he replied, "I fi

ve beaten you. I got more out

ow what y

s time I mean just what you

that,

, and the weeds among the timothy, and the fragrance of it all in June and sold it last week--" I leaned o

he exc

kind of literary feller," but his

ha

ccustomed to do when puzzled, with on

I vum!"

I went for, and hurried straight home. Life is so short when one is after dollars! I should not have wallowed through the snow, nor stopped at the top of the hill to look for a moment across the beautiful wintry earth-gray sky and bare wild trees and frosted farmsteads with homely smoke rising from the chimneys-I should merel

t which is freest, cheapest, seems somehow more valuable than anything I pay for; that which is given better than that whic

c man, a leader in this community, and the first to have a modern fruit cellar. By this means he ministers profitably to t

orner I had such of whiff of fragrance as I cannot describe. It seemed as though the vials of th

ellar, down three steps, I c

" said he. "Will ye

it had been in the dark, cool storage-room, and Horace, like some old monkish connoisseur of wines who knows just when to bring up the bottles of a certain vintage, had chosen the exact moment in all the year when the vintage

wise good for tired eyes, an antidot

said to Horace, holding

ere," said he, with sc

d, or strawberry leaves freshly trod upon, or the smell of peach wood at the summer pruning

a perfection of nature should be preserved for the

rown to b

sometimes in a winter's ice-pond. The flesh within, all dewy with moisture, was like new cream, e

sunshine from these old Massachusetts hills, of moisture drawn from our grudging soil, of all the peculiar virtues of a land where the summers make up in the passion

ours came readily in a sweetness, richness, a slight acidity, that it might not cloy; but the deeper, more delicate flavour came later-if one were not crudely impatient-and was, indeed,

n my life taste

apple," said Hora

l summer apples of all sorts, and came to the conclusion at last that it must have been just after God created this particular "tree yielding fruit" that he desisted from his day's work and remarked that what

dwin in comparison with the Bellflower, Horace began at once to interpos

barrels of Baldw

le-growing, I finished the Bellflower to the very core, and said

een one of the rar