How We
Rejoiced At The Prospect And The Warm, Glowing Sunshine!
Right
at the road's edge grew Christmas lady, sensitive and woodsia
ferns, mealy-bell-wort, true and false Solomon's
Seal, ground
ginger, greenbrier, smilax and flaming cardinal flowers which
were lit up with flying gleams of sunshine, forming great masses
of tremulous shifting mosaic of rarer and older designs than any
that Persia or India yet know. This Ohio of ours is indeed a
fair land; and this morning, of all mornings of our lives, we
seemed to hear "the ever-lasting poetry of the race." We thanked
our lucky stars that our lot fell in such a pleasant place, and
were justly proud that from Ohio's farms have come so many
worthy souls.
We found enough to admire in every farmhouse, however humble, to
repay us for our climb. Now and then we saw some narrow valleys
and rough hillsides, where corn and potatoes were engaged in a
struggle with countless stones. Without the aid of the energetic
Ohio farmers they had well-nigh been driven from the field. The
rows of pale thin corn (the stunted reward of necessitous
husbandry) "showed that these people possess that spirit of
labor, which, however undervalued by some unthinking mortals, is
the germ from which all good mast spring." One cannot but notice
with what patient industry these sturdy sons of the soil turn
these rocky hillsides into fields of growing grain; how the
apple trees were made to acquire health and productiveness; and
how the wheat stood like vast billows of gold under the rays of
the forenoon sun. We soon forgot their seeming hardships and
gave our hearty admiration to the sturdy reapers of Ohio.
These men, spending as much toil and energy upon their log
cabins and small barns, prize them just as highly as the people
of a more favored section value their more luxurious abodes. We
were glad to note the whitewashed cabins, well kept yards with
roses at the gate, patches of marigolds under the window, and
the ever present birdhouse and adjacent orchard. How at the
sight one's memory goes back to other days with a wealth of
emotion as refreshing as falling dew to thirsty flowers. One
considers how to these people their humble homes may be
priceless in their wealth of associations. They may be indeed
far richer than the owner of some palatial residence where every
luxury abounds and love is not. How often these tillers of the
soil must sit beneath their doorway, watching the outlines of
far hills clothed in dim blue haze; how often, too, they must
have watched the sinking sun as they ate their evening meal of
bread and milk and looked far away over the rolling landscape
with the air of a king. The old home has grown into their lives,
giving them more than wealth. If the soil is not adapted for the
finest crops it may produce better thinkers.
As we journeyed on we thought of John Dyer's lines on Gronger
Hill:
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