Chapter 13

The love of labour was counted a great virtue there in Faraway. As
for myself I could never put my heart in a hoe handle or in any like
tool of toil. They made a blister upon my spirit as well as upon my
hands. I tried to find in the sweat of my brow that exalted pleasure
of which Mr Greeley had visions in his comfortable retreat on
Printing House Square. But unfortunately I had not his point of
view.

Hanging in my library, where I may see it as I write, is the old
sickle of Uncle Eb. The hard hickory of its handle is worn thin by
the grip of his hand. It becomes a melancholy symbol when I
remember how also the hickory had worn him thin and bent him
low, and how infinitely better than all the harvesting of the sickle
was the strength of that man, diminishing as it wore the wood. I
cannot help smiling when I look at the sickle and thank of the soft
hands and tender amplitude of Mr Greeley.

The great editor had been a playmate of David Brower when they
were boys, and his paper was read with much reverence in our
home.

'How quick ye can plough a ten-acre lot with a pen,' Uncle Eb used
to say when we had gone up to bed after father had been reading
aloud from his Tribune.

Such was the power of the press in that country one had but to say
of any doubtful thing, 'Seen it in print,' to stop all argument. If
there were any further doubt he had only to say that he had read it
either in the Tribune or the Bible, and couldn't remember which.
Then it was a mere question of veracity in the speaker. Books and
other reading were carefully put away for an improbable time of
leisure.

'I might break my leg sometime,' said David Brower, 'then they'll
come handy.' But the Tribune was read carefully every week.

I have seen David Brower stop and look at me while I have been
digging potatoes, with a sober grin such as came to him always
after he had swapped 'hosses' and got the worst of it. Then he
would show me again, with a little impatience in his manner, how
to hold the handle and straddle the row. He would watch me for a
moment, turn to Uncle Eb, laugh hopelessly and say: 'Thet boy'll
hev to be a minister. He can't work.'

But for Elizabeth Brower it might have gone hard with me those
days. My mind was always on my books or my last talk with Jed
Feary, and she shared my confidence and fed my hopes and
shielded me as much as possible from the heavy work. Hope had a
better head for mathematics than I, and had always helped me with
my sums, but I had a better memory and an aptitude in other things
that kept me at the head of most of my classes. Best of all at
school I enjoyed the 'compositions' - I had many thoughts, such as
they were, and some facility of expression,