Читать книгу Friendly Acres - Peter McArthur - Страница 5

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For a few minutes this morning it was a wonderfully beautiful day. When the sun came over the horizon its light was flashed back by millions of facets of hoarfrost. While the fields were white with snow the glistening rime covered the buildings and trees, even to the smallest twigs. A film of cloud that lay across the West turned to a delicate rose. The scene was entirely wintry, but an unexpected touch of spring was given by the musical calls of blackbirds and meadow larks. They seemed to know that when the wind began to blow it would blow from the south. In the meantime the thermometer stood at ten above zero. The glistening crystalline world lasted for about half an hour. Then a raw wind began to blow from the south and the sky became overcast. The thermometer rose twenty-three degrees in the next couple of hours and the snow began to disappear. The wonderful morning had given place to a dreary dark day that seemed colder than when the mercury stood at ten. The sugar weather is coming back and the sap will probably start running again in the afternoon. Most of the trees have not run a drop for the past week, but two trees have apparently kept on running most of the time in spite of the frost. Three days ago I emptied the buckets at these trees and now they are full again. One of these exceptional runners is standing alone in a field, and that might account for its conduct, but the other is in the middle of the woods and no more sheltered or exposed to the sun than other trees.

I am inclined to suspect that the standard of living does not depend on necessary things, or even on the frills. It depends on the amount of the services of others that we are able to command. We have developed something royal in our dispositions that makes us want to be waited on. For instance, if I go to the sugar-bush and gather sap and boil it down and make a gallon of syrup for our own use, our standard of living is not as high as that of the man who goes to the grocer and royally orders a gallon at three or four dollars a gallon. If I kill a fat hen and prepare her for the pot, our standard of living is not as high as that of the people who call up the grocer by telephone and order a cold-storage hen. It is true that both the syrup and the hen we get are fresher and of better quality, but we have missed the royal touch in ordering the services of other people. Not being troubled with these royal aspirations, I consider the true standard of living the one that can be maintained with the least possible amount of worry. It would not profit me to be able to command the services of thousands if I had to worry to earn the money with which to pay for their services. People who are willing to depend on their own services can enjoy many good things, though they may be denied the royal attitude toward life which is becoming so popular in our democracy. A few mornings ago I found the schoolboys preparing themselves a new breakfast delicacy made of whipped Jersey cream and maple syrup. After meditating on what that would cost in a modern caravansery, with all kinds of service added to it, I took a helping. It tasted better than it digested, and I date my gloomy outlook on the standard of living from that hour.