Читать книгу An Explorer Comes Home - Roy Chapman Andrews - Страница 7

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When sensible people buy a place in the country they inquire about the neighbors. Good neighbors are important. But we never thought of that. There was only one house nearer than three quarters of a mile. We were told it belonged to Louis Guerin.

"What does he do?" I asked. "Is he a farmer?"

"Oh no. He raises guinea pigs and sells them to scientific laboratories for experiments."

That sounded interesting. He must be just the sort of neighbor we would like. I suspected that Lou Guerin and his guinea pigs would mean much to us before long. He did and he does.

The possibility that any of our friends lived near Colebrook never entered our beclouded minds. It was a long way from New York and our only Connecticut acquaintances were commuters. They traveled back and forth every day to their offices but still maintained that they lived in the country. The Tuesday after we bought Pondwood I saw William Chenery, publisher of Collier's magazine, at the Dutch Treat Club in New York.

"Bill," I said, "you see before you an embryonic farmer."

Bill was nice and pretended interest. "That's exciting. Where are you going to farm?"

"Oh, way up in Connecticut. A little village of which you probably never heard. Colebrook."

"What do you mean I've never heard of it? I've got a place there. Also Charlie Colebaugh and Walter Davenport. It's a Collier's community."

Wasn't I surprised! Over luncheon Bill told me more. Ex-Senator Fred Walcott, one of my oldest friends, lived at Norfolk, six miles away. So did Frederick Barbour and Reginald Rowland, both sportsmen of note. John van A. MacMurray, formerly United States Minister to China, and later Ambassador to Turkey, spent his summers at Doolittle Lake two miles from Pondwood. For twenty-five years Jack and Lois MacMurray had been among my most intimate friends in China and Japan. Often in Peking we had dined in the Legation gardens, with soft-footed Chinese servants ministering to our wants, while we talked of this and that. Norfolk sometimes crept into the conversation, for Lois was born there, but then it was only a name to me. With no conscious effort of our own, Fate, or whatever you wish to call it, had brought us together again on the other side of the world.

Colebrook, Bill said, was a mixture of residents whose families had lived there for more than a century and city dwellers. Most of the latter came for week ends or a month or two in the summer.

"By the way," he asked, "what are your political affiliations? I hope you are a Republican. If not, you'd better become one pronto. Otherwise, you'll be out of luck. You won't get any work done. Democrats are about as welcome as a skunk at a tea party."

I assured him we were dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. He said that filled all the requirements.

Before operations to repair the house began Billie and I spent a week end at Pondwood. That first evening was a high spot in our lives. Not a breath of wind; the pond like a mirror; golden shafts of light from the setting sun flooding the woods. We walked along a path bordering the water, silent from the spell of sheer beauty. All through the forest pink and white snow seemed to have drifted over the bushes. Because the laurel was early that year, it had overtaken the last of the wild azaleas, which filled the air with spicy fragrance. The solemn bell-like notes of hermit thrushes changed the forest into a vast cathedral. Across the pond a blue heron fished majestically against a background of emerald green. We sat down on a thick carpet of moss. At last Billie said, "Just suppose we had missed all this! Suppose we had never found Pondwood Farm!" But we had found it, and we owned its good earth, its rocks and rills, its trees and water.

That night and the next day we began to plan our new domain. Billie had already conferred with Uno Stenman, a local contractor, about the house. She knew exactly what she wanted and his job was to tell her how much of it could be done. It seemed like attacking a mountain. We didn't know where to begin on the outside—smothering vegetation, fallen stone walls, the garbage dump in the old foundation. Something had to be done about them and soon. As we surveyed the problem we agreed on the two things of first importance. The view to the pond must be opened and the meadow cleared.

My son George came up with us the week after he had finished his freshman year in Princeton. That he would fall in love with Pondwood was a foregone conclusion, for I know George. In many respects his reactions are exactly like my own. I asked him how he wanted to spend his summer vacation. Without a moment's hesitation he replied: "Working on the farm. I could take the place of one man."

Carpenters and painters had already made the house unlivable, so he pitched a tent—one I had used in Asia—in the orchard, and I produced my sleeping bag, cooking equipment, and rifle. One side of the tent had been ripped from top to bottom and neatly mended. That happened in the Gobi while we were exploring the Valley of the Jewels. I remember waking in the middle of the night with a feeling of deadly oppression. Breathless stillness bore down almost like a physical weight. Gradually I became conscious of a subdued hum, increasing in tempo every second. It was the voice of the Gobi's marching sands, warning of approaching destruction. Before I could wake the men the gale struck like a bursting bomb. Every tent went down; clothes, pots, pans, and food vanished into the air, to be dropped half a mile away; our caravan of sleeping camels was half buried in sand. For two days we collected equipment and repaired the tents. I told the story to George as we set the poles beneath our apple trees.

The sleeping bag of Mongol sheepskins had kept me warm even on below-zero nights. I remembered how I used to wriggle my cold toes in the soft wool and bless the fat-tailed sheep who had sacrificed their hides for my comfort. It had been spread beneath the stars on the summits of unnamed peaks in the Altai Mountains and the red sands of the Flaming Cliffs, where dinosaurs laid their eggs a hundred million years ago. Now it was doing its duty again for George in the orchard of a Connecticut farm.

For his protection he had the Mannlicher rifle that was my constant companion during more than a quarter of a century. To its bullets had fallen game in almost every country of the world. Two notches on the stock were reminders of how it had saved my life from Chinese brigands. In Arctic snows or tropic jungles it never failed. Whether or not George felt a thrill from using these things I could only guess, for youth is not sentimental. Nevertheless, it gave me a very happy feeling about the heart.

Hardly had George's tent been pitched when a charming boy about fourteen years old arrived on his bicycle.

"I am the society reporter of the Winsted Citizen," he said. "I'd like an interview. What are your plans?"

I have been interviewed by reporters for many papers, but never did I have less to say that could be put in print. Society was the one thing we wished to avoid at the moment. He was nice and I told him about the sleeping bag, the rifle, and the tent. He "oh'd" and "ah'd" and seemed properly impressed. What he wrote about our society plans I never knew.

People did make friendly calls, but we seldom saw them in those early days, even though we appreciated their neighborly interest. It was not because we were being anti-social. We had very definite reasons. First, there was so much to do, and only week ends in which to make the house livable, that every hour counted and we hated to be interrupted. Second, there was no place to receive visitors except to seat them on a pile of lumber, at the eminent risk of getting a nail in their pants. Moreover, both of us were usually hot, dirty, and disheveled. We could not appear to advantage for the judgment of a new community in that condition. So, if a motor sounded on the road, we took to the woods. From behind a bush I whispered bulletins to Billie, lying in the tall grass. When the visitors departed we sneaked out and returned to work.

Once we nearly got caught. A car arrived while we were working on the second floor of the house. Billie peeked from the window and saw a couple, dressed in their best, climb up the half-planked porch. They "yoo-hooed" but we kept still. Finally we heard the woman say:

"They aren't home, but I'd like to see what they are doing to the house. I'm going to look around."

After a tour of the lower regions she started up the stairs. Her husband protested.

"You can't go up there. It isn't decent."

"I can too. Nobody's home and anyway they aren't living in it."

By that time Billie and I had retreated to a newly plastered closet which smelled to high heaven. We were for it, and no mistake, if they inspected the bedrooms as thoroughly as the downstairs. Of course Billie whispered, "I'm going to sneeze."

"If you do, I'll strangle you where you stand," I hissed, in the best melodramatic tradition. She didn't sneeze and the woman came only to the top of the stairs; her husband absolutely refused to let her go farther. This was lucky for us as we wouldn't have had a chance to remain undiscovered.

As a matter of fact the residents of Colebrook and Norfolk were remarkably understanding of our situation in those first weeks and we are eternally grateful. After a hard day's work we were dead tired and only wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet of the farm. When at last we were reasonably settled, and began to see people, it was evident the neighbors had not held our early seclusion against us. Not all communities would be as tolerant.

Billie's prediction about the house was completely fulfilled. The ministrations of Uno Stenman, paint, paper, and country furniture had done wonders. It was small, to be sure, but fresh, bright, and attractive. Outside, the work progressed. All the scrub trees had been pulled out by the roots along the edge of the pond, opening a beautiful view from the house. The meadow was almost cleared, but it had cost much more than we expected. That was true about everything.

The garbage dump is a good example. The old cellar brimmed with debris of all sorts; also it smelled distressingly on hot days. Clearing it became a "must," and, moreover, a surprising archaeological investigation in early American history. Here, right in our own front yard at Pondwood Farm, lay a kitchen midden such as I had traveled to the ends of the earth to find. It revealed, in a remarkable state of preservation, successive strata of primitive human cultures. Never have I watched the story of prehistoric man unfold with greater excitement.

After the recent upper layer of auto tires, springs, tin cans, bottles, broken plates, cups, and rusted knives had been removed, rare and unusual specimens appeared with startling frequency. The workmen's shovels exhumed a corset. I examined it with breathless interest. Whalebone stays! Yes, it certainly was from the almost extinct Arctic bowhead whale, probably harpooned by one of the Nantucket or New Bedford ships. What beautiful maiden had pinched her ribs in that rigid framework to fit the size of a man's two hands! If only the corset could tell its story. When a wire hoopskirt was exposed I kneeled reverently and excavated it with my own hands. In Grandmother's attic I had once seen a similar ghastly contrivance and, even as a boy, marveled at feminine vanity.

The middle stratum produced a shattered whalebone carriage whip, the remains of a double sleigh, and a horse collar. The people of this period undoubtedly knew, and used, horses. Obviously we were dealing with an advanced culture, when animals had been domesticated.

Carefully removing the upper layer of the lowest stratum, we uncovered evidences of a still older, and more primitive, civilization. A broken oxbow, beautifully preserved and capable of reconstruction, lay beside a rimless wooden wheel, with hickory spokes, showing no signs of fossilization.

By the time hardpan was reached and the deposit exhausted, I had accumulated a voluminous sheaf of notes and several trays of specimens arranged on cotton. Each had been carefully measured, photographed in situ, and recorded, so there could be no possible doubt as to the cultural horizon it represented. This research material was sufficient to occupy my leisure hours for many days. Although I was pleased at the unexpected good fortune in discovering this highly productive kitchen midden at our very door, the yawning chasm which confronted us appalled me. Not so my wife. I saw her prowling about with the speculative gleam in her eyes which I have learned to fear; inevitably, it means some new project with which I shall have to cope.

"There are," she said, "definite possibilities in this place."

"The only one I can see is to fill it up and that's going to cost plenty," I retorted gloomily.

"Not at all. We could put the foundation stones back in position, get a few loads of topsoil for inside, and have nice grass. I'd slope the outside down to the lawn and make a rock garden."

I thought we could meet the estimated cost. After the walls were restored and the topsoil purchased and graded, Billie said, "If only we had an open fireplace at the end we could use it for barbecues and picnics. Let's do it."

I visualized a small brick camp-fire sort of thing that I Could build myself. That wasn't Billie's idea at all. So a real tailor-made stone fireplace with a chimney had to be constructed. Then we discovered that the inside lawn became a morass after every rain, for water from the meadow continually seeped into the depression. Without drains it was useless. Eventually the rock garden became a beautiful spot. We use it constantly, but it almost ruined my bank account.

Although we avoided society, rehabilitation of the farm brought us in daily contact with some Colebrook residents, for they did the work. We soon discovered that, as in all New England villages, community life revolves about the church. Voting in national and local elections is conducted in the basement; civic gatherings and social events of every description are held there. It is the meetinghouse in the most literal sense of the word. Our association with the church began immediately. When we first arrived as property owners, Mr. Cooper, one of the deacons, asked:

"Are you coming up for the Fourth of July celebration? There's going to be a sociable on the lawn and lunch. There'll be a speaker too. We don't know who he'll be yet but he'll be good—you can be sure of that—he'll be good!"

A few days later I was asked to be the speaker!

My theme was the Fourth of Julys I had spent in various parts of the world. None of the audience could have enjoyed it half as much as I did. Looking into the faces of the people who were to be our neighbors and friends, I felt that we were being accepted into the community. From that time on we were a part of Colebrook.

After my talk we ate a New England luncheon at small tables on the lawn. Women of the neighborhood produced the food. One baked a pie, another a cake, others furnished salad or brought a ham. Dozens of articles made by the women during the long winter evenings were sold from little booths: aprons, pot holders, baskets—things not only useful, but necessary to any country household. The church reaped the rewards of their virtuous labor.

I feel a particular pride in our church, for I helped to pay for the steeple. Shortly after we came to Colebrook a donation was requested to help liquidate the debt of six hundred dollars, incurred in constructing a new steeple. Why, I thought, should I not offer to give a lecture on my Gobi explorations with motion pictures? That same lecture had helped bring polo clubs out of the red in Shanghai, Tientsin, Peking, and the Fairfield Hunt Club in Connecticut. Steeplechasing and steeple building seemed definitely related. My suggestion was accepted with enthusiasm by the church committee. They drummed up patronage in the surrounding towns and charged a dollar admission. The performance, which took place in the Congregational church of Winsted, netted almost enough to clear the debt.

I learned something of the history of the church from Clarence Stotts. He is not only one of the oldest residents, the storekeeper, local historian, and general information bureau, but has represented the town in the State Legislature. I never tire of talking with Mr. Stotts. The back room of his store is a veritable museum of Colebrookiana. I was particularly interested in an old woodcut of the village, made long before the days of photography. (It might have been done yesterday except for an unobtrusive gasoline pump near the store.) Then, as now, the church dominated the center.

"Have you heard of the church war?" he asked.

I hadn't, but I did have time and interest, for I was keen to learn Colebrook's colonial history. I am recording the story, since it is typical of what happened in many other New England villages during colonial days. The bitter disputes as to the location of the churches almost amounted to civil strife.

The Colebrook quarrel began in 1781. Until ten years earlier the village was minus both church and preacher. For spiritual consolation the settlers repaired to Norfolk, six miles away. Attending divine service became a real expedition during the winter, when bitter gales piled snow waist high. Moreover, no decent New England community, however small or remote, could be without its meetinghouse. Something had to be done. Locating a place of worship was a momentous question for reasons far removed from religion. The business and residential center would grow up around the church, thus vitally affecting property values. The shrewd Yankee farmers were not ones to overlook such a bet.

"Setting the stake" for the meetinghouse became the all-absorbing topic of that day and many days to come. Some of the settlers wanted it north of the Mill Brook; others vehemently demanded that it be south of the unoffending stream. The "Northerners" and "Southerners" campaigned with all the energy of major political parties. The Northerners won by two votes.

In spite of a revival meeting in Norfolk, where many Colebrook residents were inspired, bitterness still smoldered in the hearts of the Southerners. Efforts to build the meetinghouse were frustrated until 1784. In that year timbers were cut and a foundation laid. But the house of worship was never raised, for the Southerners hung grimly to their slogan, "South of the brook or not at all."

In the meantime counter-activities started in the once-peaceful community. Would you believe it, the Baptists seized the opportunity to descend upon the town and proselyte the inhabitants! The Congregational fold began to slip badly. The Northerners were especially susceptible to the invaders, and thus began the Baptist Society in North Colebrook.

The Baptists held their first meeting not far from Pondwood Farm on September 29, 1794, under the leadership of Elder Rufus Babcock. The elder seems to have been an exceedingly stout fellow and a man of many parts. For thirty-seven years he served the church and finally directed its destinies to the foot of our hill. It might be a church in a stage setting. Diminutive, but exquisite in every detail, it stands against a somber backdrop of magnificent pines. Many years ago it ceased to be a "working" church, but the tiny lawn is always mowed and its paint is fresh and white—evidence of the loving care bestowed by the few parishioners, now widely scattered over the hills and valleys of Colebrook town.

The conditions in the church war had become well-nigh intolerable. Everyone was thoroughly disgusted with a controversy which set neighbor against neighbor, family against family. The Mill Brook was a Rubicon which no one dared to cross. An unknown person eventually proposed a brilliant solution. Why, he said, should the dispute not be settled by the flip of a coin—heads, north of the Mill Brook, tails, to the south? Cheers from both factions greeted the courageous diplomat's suggestion. The lot was cast and drawn. Lady Luck favored the Southerners. The timbers for the original building, parked north of the brook, were duly transported south of the brook, and the stake was set at a spot almost opposite the present site. The sacred timbers were raised and put in place. A church was actually born, roofed, floored, and lighted, ready for an occupant to thunder against sin and expound upon the virtue of religious unity.

But the Northerners were poor sports; no worse, be it said, than the Southerners had been a few years earlier. They rejected offers to join in procuring a preacher, or in building up the society. More than half even refused to enter the portals of the new edifice. Worship they would in Norfolk or Winsted but not in Colebrook! Called upon to explain their intolerant attitude, the Northerners contended they had been cheated by a game of chance, assented to in a moment of weakness. They had consulted their consciences in the stilly night and said consciences made it clear that they could not possibly go to church south of the Mill Brook.

Persistency is its own reward. The Southerners were worn down and eventually voted to transfer the church north of the brook, the expenses to be defrayed by a tax on society. The month of February 1794 was selected as a propitious time for the "Great Removal." One hundred and fifty pairs of oxen were harnessed to the church, "gees" and "haws" shouted, and the edifice moved majestically forward. But when a slight decline was encountered the church seemed to forget its dignity and slid downhill in a most unchurchly manner. After two days of "exceeding labor" it had been moved only five hundred feet and a greater descent, a veritable precipice compared to the other, lay immediately ahead. Obviously the building would be wrecked long before it could be towed to its designated resting place. So there it sat for upward of a year, mute but accusing evidence of human obstinacy.

Whether or not buildings have personal preferences I will not argue, but this particular house of worship evidently had decided not to go north of the brook. Another attempt with ropes and pulleys demonstrated that if the edifice moved forward at all it would do so only at breakneck speed. The church won out. The Northerners and Southerners sat down to ponder on whether or not it was all worth while. That it was not became the unanimous verdict. The church, they agreed, would be put on a suitable spot. There it stands today, after fourteen years of wrangling and controversy. The record says, "Measures were immediately adopted to procure preaching." The preaching they got was Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Jr., one of the most distinguished men of his times. He was the son of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards, a former president of Princeton University, and perhaps the greatest theological writer in colonial history. Dr. Edwards came to Colebrook as so many of us have done, to obtain peace, quiet, and fresh inspiration from its immortal hills. Thus ended Colebrook's civil war.