XXXII

THE WEEK began with two hot and “muggy” days. So lifeless was the hazy air that there was scarce enough higher wind to float the woolpack clouds through the dulled heavens, and such a breeze as moved low upon the earth stirred no curtains at the open windows of the farm. A third day began with grey cloud and the same passive air lying almost stagnant upon the heated land, but at noon came a change of the wind, a darkening overhead, and the first small, scattering drops of rain.

Oh blessedness and wonder of the rain! Not for weeks had we seen such drops, and with their appearance the long tension of a dry spell broke like a thin globe of imaginary glass. Calling and replying to each other across the rain-pitted water, loons began their quaverings and trills: they always have something to say when rain begins. Then to the senses came that first country smell of dust and rain, and then a smell of wet earth and rain, and this was presently followed by a cool breath of air moving with the rain along the fields and fragrant with a faint, cool smell of grass. A moment later a neighbor’s cat slunk past me in the garden, and took shelter under the barn.

Our gardens which had been standing still from dryness would now awake. The earth was drinking in the showers. In the small vegetable patch, the rain sluiced over the top leaves of the bush squashes, and trickled and fell from their surfaces down into the lesser leaves and the coarse, handsome, yellow-orange blossoms, and off by themselves, the strawberry plants, lovers of water, put on a varnished glisten of rain and cleanliness. In another field, rain-soaked and seen through rain, the corn stood refreshed and seemingly turned to a bluer green than it appears under daylight and the sun.

In the next field south, a neighbor walked down to unfasten a staked-out cow, and followed her at a peaceful saunter to his barn. Looking about the landscape, I saw that everywhere in sight the open earth of the planted ground had changed color: it had been sunbaked and pale, it was now a light brown darkening with every drop. The long rows of beans would be all the greener by tomorrow morning. They had needed just this.

The rain was not heavy but the earth was getting a good drenching. Standing near an ancient apple tree, I could hear the whispering rain sound in its leaves and the muffled hum and beat of the rain sound from the earth everywhere about, and hearing rejoiced in the renewal of the mysterious bond between the clouds and all that has life below.

It was still raining when I went about in the quiet, and put the house to bed. Standing at the screen of the front door, I could hear the deep living sound in the darkness beyond, sound of earth and rain, sound of promise and life.

FARM DIARY

In a mowed field at New Harbor, a group of men are spreading out the great fishing nets. The careful work, the slow, considered gestures, the checked shirts, the old village, and the ocean beyond its trees and roofs—all blend together to make a salty memory. / Talking with Lester Dunbar, he tells me that in the past many farms planted a piece of barley and had barley bread on the table. / The farm hay now cut to the last usable plume of red top and timothy, and the last great load of hay drives up the shorn slopes to the level land by the house. / Dogday weather, and the water in the pond as still as water in a rain barrel. Today a motionless boat with two pensive fishermen floats in the placid scene. / Farm kitchen a busy place these hot days with the neighbors who have been doing the mowing coming in for a drink of spring water, and four little, thirsty, flaxen-haired country children wanting a drink too. / Elizabeth answers the new telephone and returns to tell me that we have a second Damariscotta grandnephew, Daniel Thomas Day, and that he weighed nine pounds.

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This is not a wheat country though we can grow it here; our fields are fields of corn. Beautiful as such a field may be when the corn is standing high and the great harsh leaves stir with their grating sound in the hot August wind, it is often of the wheat that I think, of the ancient plant which is the token and symbol of man and of order and civilization, of the wheat of Egypt and the threshing floors, of the bright mornings of the harvest and the golden, burning afternoons, and of the last sheaf brought home in rustic triumph from the fields.

We have a tradition which is carried on by thoughts and words: has it been remarked that tradition is also carried on by things? Wheat itself is tradition, and good bread is tradition; not without reason have the great religions honored the breaking of bread together. Perhaps it would be well for us to recognize this body of tradition which lies in things and be more aware of it. We have grown blind to it and forget that apart from words it binds human being to human being, and that a way of life must seek to preserve the strengths whose roots go deep.