Classic Poem

They said he had gone out to the village
When I stopped at the farm in the morning
To see Sam Perkins about a reaper;
So I drove slowly down to The Corners,
Looking out on the fields along the way,
And thinking how much new farm machinery
Would improve the crops. Up in the mountains
They farm in a rut just as they have farmed
For two hundred years, with no rotation
Of crops, or new seed, or any science,
And their stock runs out and they get poor
Because they set their faces against change.

Yet after all I liked their stubbornness;
They had courage to resist the sure fate
Of all that's living, and deny that change
Or time could move them out of their ways.
They were steadfast, while the town-folk yielded
Without a murmur, like tame driven sheep,
To the hurrying pace of the new age,
Nor knew that in these remote fastnesses
An idyllic life went on as before.

I reflected when I brushed the warm dust
From my hat as I drove to The Corners,
I had come up here on a fool's errand.
The farmers would not buy machinery—
And I felt guilty to offer it to them.
Why should I disturb their accustomed ways?
Did they actually need the new reapers?
Why should a spring-tooth harrow seem better
To them than the old one that was hand-made?
And I hoped that the stubborn prejudice
Against the new, and the strange, would triumph,
And I should go away empty handed
And fail to sell Sam Perkins a new reaper.

I tied my horse to the gnawed hitching post
By the general store, stepped inside the door
And spoke to the store-keeper.

“Good morning.
Have you seen Sam Perkins about here?
His wife told me he'd gone to the village.”

The store-keeper was packing eggs in a crate;
He looked up over his glasses at me.
“No, I haven't,” he said curtly. “What's the reason
You want to see him? Is anyone sick
At his house?”

“No,” I answered; “not so far as I know.”
“Has the hired man quit, then?” he questioned.

“Or has he lost that red Jersey heifer
He was trying to trade me last week Tuesday?”

I laughed—“No, I've got business with him.”

“Well, he's done nothing wrong, I reckon.
What might be your business with him, stranger?”

“I sell harvesters—new farm machinery.
I understand he has the largest farms
And raises more grain per acre up here
Than any other man in the county.”

He peered at me sharply, took off his glasses
And wiped them on a wisp of brown paper;
Then he dared to trust himself to speak.

“Now, there's not a bit of use of your trying
To sell new farm machinery in these parts.
The farmers have got all the tools they want.
What be ye got to sell—those big reapers
I saw at the Fair last fall? They're no use
Up here: the ground's too rough and uneven.
Sam Perkins never has bought a machine
He could use. Why, his new patent mower
Wouldn't run over his hillside meadows,
Where the stones are as thick as the timothy.
We're satisfied with what we have up here—”

“Yes, I know that,” I answered, laughing;
“I've come to make you dissatisfied—
That's my business.”

His old eyes twinkled.
“That's a hard job, stranger,” he answered.
“We farmers know when we're well off up here.”
He paused and glanced about in the corners
Among the litter of boxes and barrels
To see that no one was listening to us,
Then came closer and lowered his voice;
It carried a burden of shamed apology
For something that lay on his conscience.

“I've never give in 'cept on one thing,”
He said confidentially—“just one thing.
I bought me an auto-wagon last summer
Of a slick agent that come through here,
And it won't run. It's out in the shed now.
Perhaps being as you know machinery,
If I speak right for ye to Sam Perkins
You'll come out there with me for a minute
And see what ails it?”

A man came toward us
As we went around outside to the shed.

“Hi there, Sam,” the store-keeper called; “come here;
I want to make you acquainted with a man
Who's rode all the way up from the city
To sell ye a reaper. He's coming now
To see what's the matter with my new auto.”