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<h2> ELEVENTH WEEK </h2>
<p>Perhaps, after all, it is not what you get out of a garden, but what you
put into it, that is the most remunerative. What is a man? A question
frequently asked, and never, so far as I know, satisfactorily answered. He
commonly spends his seventy years, if so many are given him, in getting
ready to enjoy himself. How many hours, how many minutes, does one get of
that pure content which is happiness? I do not mean laziness, which is
always discontent; but that serene enjoyment, in which all the natural
senses have easy play, and the unnatural ones have a holiday. There is
probably nothing that has such a tranquilizing effect, and leads into such
content as gardening. By gardening, I do not mean that insane desire to
raise vegetables which some have; but the philosophical occupation of
contact with the earth, and companionship with gently growing things and
patient processes; that exercise which soothes the spirit, and develops
the deltoid muscles.</p>
<p>In half an hour I can hoe myself right away from this world, as we
commonly see it, into a large place, where there are no obstacles. What an
occupation it is for thought! The mind broods like a hen on eggs. The
trouble is, that you are not thinking about anything, but are really
vegetating like the plants around you. I begin to know what the joy of the
grape-vine is in running up the trellis, which is similar to that of the
squirrel in running up a tree. We all have something in our nature that
requires contact with the earth. In the solitude of garden-labor, one gets
into a sort of communion with the vegetable life, which makes the old
mythology possible. For instance, I can believe that the dryads are plenty
this summer: my garden is like an ash-heap. Almost all the moisture it has
had in weeks has been the sweat of honest industry.</p>
<p>The pleasure of gardening in these days, when the thermometer is at
ninety, is one that I fear I shall not be able to make intelligible to my
readers, many of whom do not appreciate the delight of soaking in the
sunshine. I suppose that the sun, going through a man, as it will on such
a day, takes out of him rheumatism, consumption, and every other disease,
except sudden death—from sun-stroke. But, aside from this, there is
an odor from the evergreens, the hedges, the various plants and vines,
that is only expressed and set afloat at a high temperature, which is
delicious; and, hot as it may be, a little breeze will come at intervals,
which can be heard in the treetops, and which is an unobtrusive
benediction. I hear a quail or two whistling in the ravine; and there is a
good deal of fragmentary conversation going on among the birds, even on
the warmest days. The companionship of Calvin, also, counts for a good
deal. He usually attends me, unless I work too long in one place; sitting
down on the turf, displaying the ermine of his breast, and watching my
movements with great intelligence. He has a feline and genuine love for
the beauties of Nature, and will establish himself where there is a good
view, and look on it for hours. He always accompanies us when we go to
gather the vegetables, seeming to be desirous to know what we are to have
for dinner. He is a connoisseur in the garden; being fond of almost all
the vegetables, except the cucumber,—a dietetic hint to man. I
believe it is also said that the pig will not eat tobacco. These are
important facts. It is singular, however, that those who hold up the pigs
as models to us never hold us up as models to the pigs.</p>
<p>I wish I knew as much about natural history and the habits of animals as
Calvin does. He is the closest observer I ever saw; and there are few
species of animals on the place that he has not analyzed. I think he has,
to use a euphemism very applicable to him, got outside of every one of
them, except the toad. To the toad he is entirely indifferent; but I
presume he knows that the toad is the most useful animal in the garden. I
think the Agricultural Society ought to offer a prize for the finest toad.
When Polly comes to sit in the shade near my strawberry-beds, to shell
peas, Calvin is always lying near in apparent obliviousness; but not the
slightest unusual sound can be made in the bushes, that he is not alert,
and prepared to investigate the cause of it. It is this habit of
observation, so cultivated, which has given him such a trained mind, and
made him so philosophical. It is within the capacity of even the humblest
of us to attain this.</p>
<p>And, speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no class of men whose
society is more to be desired for this quality than that of plumbers. They
are the most agreeable men I know; and the boys in the business begin to
be agreeable very early. I suspect the secret of it is, that they are
agreeable by the hour. In the driest days, my fountain became disabled:
the pipe was stopped up. A couple of plumbers, with the implements of
their craft, came out to view the situation. There was a good deal of
difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. I found the plumbers
perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it,—talk by the hour.
Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly ingenious; and their
general observations on other subjects were excellent in their way, and
could hardly have been better if they had been made by the job. The work
dragged a little, as it is apt to do by the hour. The plumbers had
occasion to make me several visits. Sometimes they would find, upon
arrival, that they had forgotten some indispensable tool; and one would go
back to the shop, a mile and a half, after it; and his comrade would await
his return with the most exemplary patience, and sit down and talk,—always
by the hour. I do not know but it is a habit to have something wanted at
the shop. They seemed to me very good workmen, and always willing to stop
and talk about the job, or anything else, when I went near them. Nor had
they any of that impetuous hurry that is said to be the bane of our
American civilization. To their credit be it said, that I never observed
anything of it in them. They can afford to wait. Two of them will
sometimes wait nearly half a day while a comrade goes for a tool. They are
patient and philosophical. It is a great pleasure to meet such men. One
only wishes there was some work he could do for them by the hour. There
ought to be reciprocity. I think they have very nearly solved the problem
of Life: it is to work for other people, never for yourself, and get your
pay by the hour. You then have no anxiety, and little work. If you do
things by the job, you are perpetually driven: the hours are scourges. If
you work by the hour, you gently sail on the stream of Time, which is
always bearing you on to the haven of Pay, whether you make any effort, or
not. Working by the hour tends to make one moral. A plumber working by the
job, trying to unscrew a rusty, refractory nut, in a cramped position,
where the tongs continually slipped off, would swear; but I never heard
one of them swear, or exhibit the least impatience at such a vexation,
working by the hour. Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How
sweet the flight of time seems to his calm mind!</p>
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