Hardihood Is The True Test, Hardihood Is The
Ideal, And Not These Caperings Or Ten Minutes' Spurts.
Now, the way they made the boy John Brown hardy was to let him roll about
on the ground with naked legs and bare head from morn till night, from
June till December, from January till June.
The rain fell on his head,
and he played in wet grass to his knees. Dry bread and a little lard was
his chief food. He went to work while he was still a child. At half-past
three in the morning he was on his way to the farm stables, there to help
feed the cart-horses, which used to be done with great care very early in
the morning. The carter's whip used to sting his legs, and sometimes he
felt the butt. At fifteen he was no taller than the sons of well-to-do
people at eleven; he scarcely seemed to grow at all till he was eighteen
or twenty, and even then very slowly, but at last became a tall big man.
That slouching walk, with knees always bent, diminished his height to
appearance; he really was the full size, and every inch of his frame had
been slowly welded together by this ceaseless work, continual life in the
open air, and coarse hard food. This is what makes a man hardy. This is
what makes a man able to stand almost anything, and gives a power of
endurance that can never be obtained by any amount of gymnastic training.
I used to watch him mowing with amazement. Sometimes he would begin at
half-past two in the morning, and continue till night. About eleven
o'clock, which used to be the mowers' noon, he took a rest on a couch of
half-dried grass in the shade of the hedge. For the rest, it was mow,
mow, mow for the long summer day.
John Brown was dead: died in an instant at his cottage door. I could
hardly credit it, so vivid was the memory of his strength. The gap of
time since I had seen him last had made no impression on me; to me he was
still in my mind the John Brown of the hayfield; there was nothing
between then and his death.
He used to catch us boys the bats in the stable, and tell us fearful
tales of the ghosts he had seen; and bring the bread from the town in an
old-fashioned wallet, half in front and half behind, long before the
bakers' carts began to come round in country places. One evening he came
into the dairy carrying a yoke of milk, staggering, with tipsy gravity;
he was quite sure he did not want any assistance, he could pour the milk
into the pans. He tried, and fell at full length and bathed himself from
head to foot. Of later days they say he worked in the town a good deal,
and did not look so well or so happy as on the farm.
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