New lives for old

Our plan was simple and to the point; first to organize the village into a club on the simplest and broadest lines. It was to be called “The Pioneers,” and every taxpayer and the family of every taxpayer was to be eligible for membership. The membership fee was to be for adults one dollar, for women fifty cents, for boys ten cents. We were to have a president, a secretary-treasurer, and a board of five directors. The latter were to pass on all disbursements and had the privilege of canceling membership fees in any worthy case. Our constitution and by-laws were to be merely perfunctory and as free of red tape as was consistent with proper organization.

Holt, a young lawyer in town who had taken an immediate interest in the plan, undertook to secure the pledges for the thousand dollars so that at the first meeting we might have something tangible to present. I headed the list with five hundred dollars, he came second with fifty, and Ed Barclay made up another fifty. Holt secured the rest in two days from the village merchants. Not a man refused to subscribe. On the face of it the scheme appealed to them as worth a try anyhow. It took no argument to make them appreciate the fact that their business was dependent upon the prosperity of the community, but it impressed them as a distinct novelty to attempt anything to further the prosperity of the same community upon which they were dependent. They had always accepted conditions as fixed by forces over which they had no control. They were like farmers who, before the days of irrigation, accepted drought as a decree of God. The idea of doing anything to remedy natural conditions never occurred to them. This new plan was carrying matters even one step further; it was an attempt not to remedy but actually to create. The argument I had used with Dick about the town being a big unused plant appealed to them. With a market waiting for us and plenty of labor on hand we proposed to set the wheels a-going and create a business for the merchants and for every citizen in the town.

Three days later, on January fifteenth, the following notice, prepared by Holt, appeared in the local paper spread over half the front page, in place of the usual stale Washington correspondence:

This looked to me a little bit like circus advertising and I wanted Holt to tone it down, but he shook his head.

“I’d put it in red ink if they had any in the printing shop, but they haven’t. You don’t use a tinkly silver bell when you want to call this bunch in the morning; you use a cow bell.”

In addition to this we had the same call to arms printed in the form of a circular—Holt unearthed some green paper for this—and mailed a copy to everyone in town. Those we had left over we tacked up in the stores and on telegraph poles. It’s pretty certain no one missed seeing it, and if they did they had to be deaf not to hear about it, for there wasn’t much of anything else talked about from the moment it appeared. We wanted to get everyone together for once if we never did again, and we certainly succeeded.

An hour before the meeting was called to order the hall was packed jam full and there were at least a hundred who couldn’t get in. There is something electric about the enthusiasm of people in just being together. The whole village rubbing shoulders with one another in a bunch had its effect. They were on edge with excitement and began to show signs of waking up on the spot. The slightest incident was enough to send a laugh through the crowd and it took nothing at all to start a cheer.

Holt was flying around like a hen with its head cut off trying to make room for those outside, collecting chairs and poking up the janitor to keep the hall warm. His face was flushed and his eyes bright with the excitement of it. I myself was fairly stage struck when I looked out from behind the wings and saw the gathering. I found it difficult to catch my breath and heartily wished someone else was going to preside. I tried to persuade Holt to open the meeting but he wouldn’t.

“No, siree, you’re the man. Where’s that confounded band?” He was off in a second to round them up and make out the programme for the music. He had to make room for them on the stage and a few minutes later they struck up the Star Spangled Banner. After they had played it through once Holt stepped to the front after nodding towards them to repeat.

“Now,” he said, “everyone join in.”

He stood there like the leader of a chorus beating time with his hands, and every man, woman and child sang his best. They sang the second verse with a vim that strained their throats. As I watched them my eyes grew blurry and my knees weak. I began to question all the hard things I had said about them, for if ever patriotism was expressed in music it was then. It seemed to me that a hundred years and more rolled back, revealing every man here as ready to shoulder a musket for his country as ever their ancestors had been. When the singing ceased and it came time for me to step forward I felt worse than I did when as a boy I had to speak a piece on Friday afternoon. I was appointed temporary chairman by acclaim and then started in to deliver the little speech I had prepared for the occasion. But I hadn’t gone far before I forgot it and took a new course. At first I had been self-conscious like a bashful man among strangers, but when I was used to the many eyes staring at me I felt as though I was with my own family. A common country and a common cause seemed to unite us on the spot. I had wished to avoid the personal. Even in the face of the publicity I have already given the little happenings of my own life, I can truthfully say I don’t like it. But I felt here as I felt before when I wrote for print, that what a man can talk of from his own knowledge counts for a great deal more than his theories. So before I knew it I found myself telling briefly what I put down in “One Way Out.” I tried to impress upon them the opportunities that are open to a man who tackles life in a pioneer spirit and the fun of the fight. Then I rehearsed what their ancestors had done on these same acres upon which they now lived and tried to make them understand that if to-day there were more handicaps there were also corresponding opportunities. I spoke of the big market awaiting their produce and by my personal experiences in living in the big city made them understand how hungry a market it was.

“If your great grandfathers could come back here to-day,” I said, “there isn’t a man of them who wouldn’t build a fortune upon this land.”

I was conscious of cheering from time to time but I didn’t realize how deeply they were really moved until I had finished. Then I became conscious again that I was on a platform facing them and I saw them rise to their feet and cheer again and again. I had in some way introduced Holt, but before he stepped forward he motioned to the band and they struck up Yankee Doodle Dandy. The leader didn’t step lively enough for him and amid more cheering and laughing he took the leader’s place and led them off at a quickstep that made the whole crowd keep pace with pounding feet. Ruth was in the front row with Dick and I caught her eye. She smiled at me in a way that made me very proud.

Holt, taking advantage of the right feeling I had created in the audience, developed at once the practical side of the proposition.

“Have all the pioneers died or moved West?” he demanded.

“No! No!” came the reply from a group of the younger men.

“Right! Right!” he shouted. “What is more, we’re going to prove it. We have a fine example here in Mr. Carleton, but we aren’t going to allow him to be known for long as the only living specimen of pioneer captivity.”

This of course raised a laugh and then he told them something of what was being done in the middle West and South to encourage farming. Then he quoted from some of the reports recently made by the government and by agricultural schools to show what the possibilities for farming were right in New England.

“Now,” he said, “what we want to do is to get together and work together and fight together and accomplish some of these things ourselves. The trouble with us is that it’s been every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. The farmer must help the merchant and the merchant help the farmer. To this end it is proposed that we organize ourselves into a club to be known as ‘The Pioneers.’”

This was greeted with a cheer and then Holt outlined the plan as we had already outlined it among ourselves. This was greeted with a still noisier cheer. But when he mentioned the thousand dollars that had been raised as prize money the audience let itself loose.

“Now,” he said in conclusion, “I move you that we waste no further time in discussion but adopt at once the constitution and by-laws for this organization as here prepared.”

It was seconded and carried unanimously.

“Now,” said Holt, “I move you that Mr. William Carleton be elected president of this club by a unanimous vote.”

It was done.

I took the floor again and nominated Holt as secretary-treasurer, which was seconded and passed.

Then Holt, the three leading merchants and myself were elected a committee of five directors to prepare the further details. The meeting then adjourned until the following Wednesday.

Holt had ready on the platform paper and ink for those to sign who wished to become members, and no sooner was the meeting over than a rush for the stage began. Two hundred and sixty-three signatures were secured then and there and as near as I could judge the only reason everyone in the hall didn’t sign was because only the hardy could reach the table.

Now no one could have asked for a more auspicious beginning than this, but I had seen enough of how men act in a group to know that the real test would come later after each individual had cooled off and thought over the proposition for himself. Consequently while I considered this evening’s enthusiasm to be decidedly significant and boding well for the scheme, I expected a slump sooner or later. Holt, however, couldn’t see even a speck in the clear sky, and I for one was glad of it. It’s good to see a man that way.

“They jumped at it like a hungry trout does at a worm,” he declared. “This is just the encouragement for which they’ve been waiting twenty-five years. Before next Wednesday I expect to have the name of everyone who can hold a pen on that list.”

And Ruth was about as enthusiastic as Holt.

“It was fine, Billy,” she said. “You certainly kept your promise about waking them up.”

In looking back over these last few pages it strikes me that perhaps these things aren’t very important but my pen sort of ran away with me as I remembered that first meeting. But then again maybe these details are significant as showing how easy it was to rouse these people as a whole in contrast with how difficult it was to inspire them individually. If Holt and I had taken any one of these men into an office and given him the same talk it would have gone in one ear and out the other without leaving even a record of its progress.

During the next week the five of us worked hard on our list of prizes. We wanted the money to cover as much ground as possible but we also wanted each prize to be substantial enough to be tempting. This is what we finally made ready to report to the next meeting:

1. For the best crop of hay on one acre of fresh broken land, one hundred dollars.

2. For the best crop of hay on an acre of land already used as hay land, seventy-five dollars.

3. For the best crop of corn on an acre of land, one hundred dollars.

4. For the best house garden, seventy-five dollars.

5. For the best market garden, seventy-five dollars.

6. For the best flower garden, fifty dollars.

7. For the best potato crop per acre, one hundred dollars.

8. For the largest return from chickens according to capital invested, one hundred dollars.

9. For the largest return from cows according to capital invested, one hundred dollars.

10. For the largest return from pigs according to capital invested, one hundred dollars.

11. For the most notable improvement in an old orchard, one hundred and twenty-five dollars.

This seemed at the time and it seems to me to-day a pretty fair division. It gave everyone a chance whether the owner of one acre or fifty, and it was varied enough to interest everyone. As the awards were to be made on the basis of capital invested it gave the poor man an equal chance with the well-to-do.

To some people the main prizes of a hundred dollars may seem small, but just remember that this was a bonus over and above the regular profit a man was sure to make on his six months’ work. Furthermore, a hundred dollars in the country means a good deal more than it does in the city. Furthermore again, one hundred dollars in a lump sum is worth two hundred dollars in installments. And finally, one hundred dollars as a prize looks about as big as a thousand dollars. I’ve known men to spend a hundred dollars in a lottery and consider their money well invested when they finally drew a prize of five dollars. In every newspaper contest you’ll find men doing a hundred dollars’ worth of work to get a chance at a ten dollar prize.

The second meeting was almost as well attended as the first and the committee’s report was received with enthusiasm. But the thing which pleased me most was the fact that it was the young men who came early and crowded up into the front of the hall. Holt noticed this and pointed out a goodly number of youngsters who never before had taken any interest in farming at all. It is doubtful if they did now except as a means for reaching the prizes. However, that point didn’t worry me. I knew that in order to win the money they must first of all make their land pay, and once they got into their heads the fact the soil would pay, half our object was attained.

But this suggested a new idea. In fact, every step we took suggested further development. Our scheme grew by itself like a weed, which to my mind is the logical way for an enterprise of this sort to grow. After we had adjourned until the following Wednesday I called the attention of the board of directors to the fact that so many young men who had always affected to scorn farming showed an interest in our proposition.

“Now,” I said, “it seems to me a pity to let them go at their work in haphazard fashion. The most any of them know, probably, is to plow and harrow the soil, put in their seed, and then wait for results.”

“Well,” said Moulton, “if they keep down the weeds it will keep them out of mischief, anyhow.”

“And they’ll get discouraged in a season, if not sooner,” I said. “No, we want to help them do more than that—we want them to get results. It won’t mean anything to them or to you if they don’t.”

“Right,” agreed Holt. “Swanson, you’re the farmer of the board. It’s up to you to instruct them.”

Swanson had a fifty-acre farm on which he raised hay with better results than some, simply because his land was better.

“They prob’ly think they know more’n I do now,” he answered.

There wasn’t much doubt about that, for no one ever has much faith in local authority. Still I saw the old man was rather proud that the suggestion had been made and I didn’t wish to hurt his feelings.

“Mr. Swanson is a busy man,” I said. “What we want is someone who can come here and address the club as a club. I thought that possibly the State Agricultural School might help us out.”

Swanson threw up his head at this like an old war horse scenting a battle.

“Huh,” he grunted, “what do them fellers know ’bout farmin’? Half of ’em never held a plow handle in their lives.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, “but if it’s true I’d like to have one of them down here and help show him up.”

“What they don’t know ’bout farmin’ would fill a book,” he growled.

“We’ll put you down in the audience and let you pop questions at them,” I laughed. “Anyway it ought to keep up the interest of the club until spring. No harm done anyway. I put the motion that I be instructed to write the school and see what can be done.”

“Seconded,” chirped in Holt.

Swanson didn’t object, and so the next day I sent off my letter. In it I told briefly what we had done and what we wished to do and asked for advice. To my surprise I received at once an enthusiastic letter from the president himself asking for a personal interview.