第25章

In these golden latter August days, Nature has come to a serene equilibrium.Having flowered and fruited, she is enjoying herself.

I can see how things are going: it is a down-hill business after this; but, for the time being, it is like swinging in a hammock,--such a delicious air, such a graceful repose! I take off my hat as I stroll into the garden and look about; and it does seem as if Nature had sounded a truce.I did n't ask for it.I went out with a hoe; but the serene sweetness disarms me.Thrice is he armed who has a long-handled hoe, with a double blade.Yet to-day I am almost ashamed to appear in such a belligerent fashion, with this terrible mitrailleuse of gardening.

The tomatoes are getting tired of ripening, and are beginning to go into a worthless condition,--green.The cucumbers cumber the ground,--great yellow, over-ripe objects, no more to be compared to the crisp beauty of their youth than is the fat swine of the sty to the clean little pig.The nutmeg-melons, having covered themselves with delicate lace-work, are now ready to leave the vine.I know they are ripe if they come easily off the stem.

Moral Observations.--You can tell when people are ripe by their willingness to let go.Richness and ripeness are not exactly the same.The rich are apt to hang to the stem with tenacity.I have nothing against the rich.If I were not virtuous, I should like to be rich.But we cannot have everything, as the man said when he was down with small-pox and cholera, and the yellow fever came into the neighborhood.

Now, the grapes, soaked in this liquid gold, called air, begin to turn, mindful of the injunction, "to turn or burn." The clusters under the leaves are getting quite purple, but look better than they taste.I think there is no danger but they will be gathered as soon as they are ripe.One of the blessings of having an open garden is, that I do not have to watch my fruit: a dozen youngsters do that, and let it waste no time after it matures.I wish it were possible to grow a variety of grape like the explosive bullets, that should explode in the stomach: the vine would make such a nice border for the garden,--a masked battery of grape.The pears, too, are getting russet and heavy; and here and there amid the shining leaves one gleams as ruddy as the cheek of the Nutbrown Maid.The Flemish Beauties come off readily from the stem, if I take them in my hand:

they say all kinds of beauty come off by handling.

The garden is peace as much as if it were an empire.Even the man's cow lies down under the tree where the man has tied her, with such an air of contentment, that I have small desire to disturb her.She is chewing my cud as if it were hers.Well, eat on and chew on, melancholy brute.I have not the heart to tell the man to take you away: and it would do no good if I had; he wouldn't do it.The man has not a taking way.Munch on, ruminant creature.

The frost will soon come; the grass will be brown.I will be charitable while this blessed lull continues: for our benevolences must soon be turned to other and more distant objects,--the amelioration of the condition of the Jews, the education of theological young men in the West, and the like.