A Search for America / by Frederick Philip Grove, e-Ed.2000 -- BOOK IV, CHAPTER IV.
BOOK FOUR. -- THE LEVEL

CHAPTER IV.

I MEET MOTHER AND SON.

HE FIRST building in that long row of stables and barns which ran along the southern edge of the western half of the yard was the "driving-barn". It consisted of two parts: the front-shed which held an astonishing array of buggies, old-fashioned carriages, dog-carts, and so on, a harness-room, and the quarters of the "driving-boss"; in the rear, the stable where four or five driving-teams and four or five saddle-horses had their stalls. Over the whole building stretched a hayloft.
The quarters of the driving-boss were connected by telephone with the White House, the office, and the superintendent's residence.
The driving-boss, as he was called -- the word "boss" meaning in this connection that he took no orders from any of the foremen -- was a middle-aged little Scotchman of real horsemanship. His temper, however, was that of the man suffering from chronic stomach-trouble -- an American disease due, I believe, to the so-called high standard of living. During my month as store-boss I had been thrown with him a good deal, for the broncho-team was quartered in his stable.
One evening, when I was closing up for the day, Mr. Mackenzie appeared in the store-house.
"How are you with horses, Branden?" he asked.
"Oh," I replied, "about as good as the next one, I suppose."
"Well," he went on, "I need a substitute for the driving-boss. He is going on a spree. Do you think you could handle the hackneys?"
"On a spree?" I said, without answering the question.

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"I thought you don't allow anybody to leave till you have finished threshing?"

"Oh," he replied, "it's different with Standish. He's a permanent employee and has his privileges. When he wants to get drunk, there's no holding him anyway. I'd rather have him away, then. He picks his own time. It is inconvenient -- just now; but he gives satisfaction, and we want him back. How about the hackneys?"
"Well," I said, "as far as the hackneys go, I'm not afraid. How about the wages?"
"Same as here. Two dollars for rainy days and Sundays; on workdays what the field-crews get."
"All right," I said.
"That's settled, then," said Mr. Mackenzie. "We've got a man to take your place here. Better move over tomorrow morning.
Thus, for the second time, I changed my status on this farm.
Again I will briefly summarize my new duties.
First among them was, of course, the care for the horses. This comprised feeding and brushing, watching the state of their health, looking after their shoeing, and taking them out for exercise when they were not being used. Further, I had to get the teams ready when they were needed; for the owner, for the superintendent, and now and then for the bookkeeper, too. And lastly, when Mr. Mackenzie or his mother wished to be driven, I had to act as coachman.
Mrs. Mackenzie, whom I had never seen so far, was a white-haired lady of bourgeois habits and conspicuously expensive tastes. Her late husband had, in his earlier life, been a section boss; that explained it. She was given to visiting and church-work, so that, whenever the weather was propitious, I was kept busy in her service during the afternoon.
Hers was the black team of hackneys of which she was at the same time excessively proud and inordinately afraid. They were high-strung beasts, but so easily handled

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and so responsive that to me it was a never-exhausted pleasure to drive them. They were so infinitely superior to the dowdy old lady who sat behind my back that I sometimes smiled and winked at occasional passers-by in town who would invariably stop to admire their arching necks and the thin bones of their fleet, dancing feet.

Once, when we were crossing, the crowded freight-yard in town where cars were being shunted and locomotives unexpectedly blew off their steam, the funny bundle of silks and ribbons in the carriage flew into a panic and screamed at me, "Do you see that engine, coachman? Take the whip!"
She did not know that to use the whip on horses like that would have been at once dangerous and foolish.
I nodded; but I merely watched for the moment when the passage ahead was clear and then clicked my tongue the prancing horses straightened out and shot away.
The old lady never called me anything but "coachman" -- that seemed to her a symbol of the gulf which gaped between us. She was, to herself, the "grande dame"; I was a nameless menial. She is dead, now; so this will never hurt her.
On another occasion she telephoned an unexpected order for her team, adding, "Hurry up, coachman. I want to be in town in twenty-five minutes."
The town was five miles away; twenty-five minutes was rather short notice. I came very near recommending the use of the car; but I knew that nothing would have induced her to enter such a vulgar conveyance. I also knew the horses and what I could ask them to do when it came to an emergency. I had the carriage in front of the White House in less than six minutes.
She stood on the steps; and when I held the door of the carriage for her, she threw her order at me, "To the rectory. And remember, coachman, I promised to be there at half past two. Don't make me late."
"Very well, madam," I replied and touched my cap;

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for I was wearing a uniform when I took her out; her son was just as well pleased with me in overalls.

We had nineteen minutes to make five miles; but we made them. The horses, not used to such speeding, were speckled with the foam thrown from their mouths.
"Wait here," said Mrs. Mackenzie when I opened the door for her, touching my cap.
But I judged it expedient to walk the horses up and down the street so as to prevent a chill.
When, twenty minutes or so after that, Mrs. Mackenzie appeared on the steps, with the rector, she had to wait a quarter of a minute before she could re-enter the carriage. I saw at once that she was displeased.
An hour or so later, when we were back at the farm, her son came into the driving-barn and asked me, "What's that my mother is complaining about?"
I stated the facts and showed him the horses which were still nervous and which I had blanketed.
"Well," he said, "you did right, of course. Never mind mother."
With that he walked out.
It was quite a different matter to drive Mr. Mackenzie himself. I have already mentioned that he never stood on form. He liked to Tinker about; so he used his car mostly. Cars gave ample scope, at the time, for the exercise of mechanical leanings; I have heard they do so still.
But when the season advanced, he liked to go out shooting birds in the evening; and whenever he did, he asked me to drive him. If we missed the supper-hour, he would take me to the kitchen of the White House where a pretty maid would serve both of us with a snack.
We used to take a broncho-team for these drives, and they were sometimes not easy to handle. One of the horses we had, occasionally, to chase for five or ten minutes around the stable before we could slip a bridle over his head. And when we had hitched them to the democrat we were using, we had to jump in as fast as we could, for there was no

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holding them. The young owner invariably helped me in these preparations, and we had a good deal of fun.

Then, when we rolled along the smooth roads between his Fields, Mr. Mackenzie dearly loved to talk.
Since we were going out to shoot birds, I told him of the game reserves in Europe. I told him especially of a certain evening which I had once spent in a deer-park; I contrasted that careful policy of conservation with America's wastefulness.
"Oh yes," he said, "but all that's only for royalty."
"Not as far as their presence goes," I replied. "Of course, as for shooting them . . ."
"Well," he asked, "what else should you want to keep game for?"
"That's your American view," I assailed him. "You people still have the utilitarian idea; the fight for the backyard is still in your blood; you haven't had time to put your frontyard in order . . ."
The young owner laughed. "I like your way," he said. "You are hard on America, are you not?"
"On some phases of its life," I argued. "Do you know why?"
"I am curious," he said.
"Because you are wasting the biggest opportunity any civilized nation ever had; because there is even in you a spark of that spirit which found the word Government of the people, by the people, for the people."
"The people!" Mr. Mackenzie scoffed. "Who are they? I am the people."
I gasped. "Do you know," I said, "that you are not the first one to use words to that effect?"
"No, I don't."
"You should read," I went on. "Read history, above all. There's something to be learned."
Mr. Mackenzie laughed it off. "You are a funny fellow," he said.
But he came back to the topic. A few days later, when we were rolling along the roads again, we passed the field

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on which the crews were threshing. We approached behind a screen of poplars and came unawares upon some of them who were loading the sheaves. At sight of the young owner they changed their gait.

Mackenzie laughed again. "There is your people for you," he said. "Did you see how they speeded up when they saw us?"
"Of course," I replied, "what else can you expect? They have nothing at stake."
"They are taking my money," he objected.
"You have taken their land," I countered, waving my arms across the landscape.
"It's honestly come by," he said.
"It's come by through chance," I challenged.
He laughed.
"I have often wondered," I went on, "how much of what is called enterprise is really chance."
"You're a radical," he said.
"Of course," I agreed. "How can anybody with imagination, sympathy, and brains be anything but a radical? You are a duke, a lord, or an incipient king."
"No kings in this country," he said.
"Well," I replied, "do you think that kings in Europe had a different origin? It has always been that way. Who grabs most becomes the founder of a great family. What did you do to become the owner of this principality? You went to the trouble of being born, to quote a Frenchman."
"I am a good farmer," he defended himself.
"You're not," I accused. "Have you ever spent a night in a bed of your bunk-house?"
"Well," he exclaimed, "you are the limit! I am not fond enough of lice."
"So you have not even the excuse of ignorance! Do you think the hobos are?"
"They must be, or they would get rid of them."
"Have you ever seen them squatting along the slough, of a Sunday, boiling their clothes?" I asked.

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"Yes," he pondered, "I have. Why don't they go and clean out the bunks?"
"I wish you would try to pitch sheaves for twelve hours, one day, and afterwards clean house."
"There may be something in that," he agreed. "But there are the rainy days."
"I should not like myself to sleep in wet straw," I answered.
Next day I was thrilled to hear that a man had been appointed to look after the cleaning of the bunk-house. All the bunks were treated with coal-oil and gasoline; the straw was renewed.
"You're learning," I praised the next time. "I wish you had given orders to have the blankets burnt."
"Say," said the young man, "don't you think you are asking a good deal?"
"Just what does your harvest amount to?" I countered.
Mr. Mackenzie looked at me, quizzically. "I know what you are driving at. I'll tell you. Suppose I did all that. What good would it do?"
"It would set an example," I replied. "You see, I am a better American than you are. Do you know what I believe to be the fundamental difference between this country and Europe?"
"I wonder."
"The whole civilization of Europe is based on the theory of the original sin. Right is done only when might enforces it. Even the life of the individual is regulated. But here there is a profound suspicion that in his heart the human animal wants to do right and is good. Take the case of mere honesty. The railway-system, the customs, the police-organization of Europe -- they are all built up on the presumption that everybody, unless watched, is a crook. Here the presumption is that the average American is honest."
"I wish I had more of that average," said Mr. Mackenzie.

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This time it was I who laughed. "Hold on," I said. "Now you are the radical."
"I don't see that," he replied.
"According to your fundamental tenet all men are born free and equal."
"A beautiful phrase!"
"Do I hear an American say that?"
"You don't want me to assume that the hobo who has to be watched at his work from morning till night is my equal?"
"Are you so sure that, if he had been born in your place, he would not make as good a millionaire as you are? Or that you would make a more industrious hobo than he is? -- I am a hobo myself."
"You don't seem to be one," he said. "You are too outspoken."
"Do you know what I have made up my mind to do?"
"Well?" he asked.
"When I leave this life, I am going to talk Red to every man like you," I replied. "But I am going to be the most conservative of the conservatives when I talk to the men. I cannot help believing that at heart you mean right, even where you are doing wrong."
There was quite a break, after this, in our conversations, occasioned by the fact that visitors arrived at the White House. For a week or longer there was only one of these evening-excursions; and that time Mr. Mackenzie was accompanied by a guest.
When the guests were gone, Mr. Mackenzie resumed the drives. The first time we sat in silence for quite a while. Then it was he who took our old topic up again.
"I've been wondering," he said, "what you would have done if you had had the misfortune of being born in my place."
"Don't be so ironical about it," I said.
"Well," he countered, "your talks have made me feel quite blue."
"Good," I exclaimed. "Though they were not meant

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to work that way. If it is any comfort to you, I will first of all say that probably I should have lived a life of ease as you have done. You rich people don't have half a chance. Your education is neglected."

"Our education?."
"Yes," I replied. "A man like Judge Gary is to be pitied only. It would do him, and incidentally a few thousand workmen, a world of good if he were turned out on a tramp in a foreign country for a year or two, penniless, in order to learn. I contend that, as things stand to-day, the most fundamental part of your education is forgotten. You are not taught to see the other fellow's point of view. But, of course, if you were, you might lose sight of your own, though that would be distinctly the lesser evil. Equality of opportunity! Nothing but a phrase. You poor rich people simply do not stand a chance!"
"It strikes me," laughed Mr. Mackenzie, "that this time it is you who are ironical."
"Very well," I said, "I'll be serious. What you really meant to ask is this: What would I do if a property like this fell into my hands at the present time, I being what I am and having gone through what I have seen of the world? I will tell you; but it will seem Utopian. First of all I should spend some hundred thousand odd dollars in providing proper dormitories for the men -- a white-tiled bunk-house with proper bathing and washing facilities and decent beds: that would settle the vermin. Then gymnasium, reading-room, and play-room equipped for the proper kind of games: that would settle the goings-on in that bunk-house hall of yours. Next I should provide proper work for them the year around. You would soon anchor that part of your floating labour supply which can take root. And lastly I should divest myself of my property."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, I should feel that it is sinful for me to let even an appearance persist as if I were really the owner of all this and as if the men were working for me. It is surely better for the country if the same amount of grain, or even

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a smaller amount, is produced by a greater number of independent farmers, each holding a fraction only of what you hold. I am not an economist, but I can see that real democracy can be arrived at only in one of two ways, by collective ownership or by a limitation of wealth. I do not presume to decide on their relative merits; I do not expect to see either way realized in my lifetime."

"How old are you?" asked Mr. Mackenzie with seeming irrelevance.
"I am young, thank God," I replied with fervour; "and so are you. Youth means courage and adaptability; old age means ossification. I hope I shall never be old, even though I live to be a hundred or more."
"I sometimes wonder," he sighed, "whether you are right or merely crazy."
And at that we left it.
Harvest was finished; the regular driving-boss returned. I drew my pay -- it amounted to two hundred dollars or so -- and got ready to move.
I said a personal good-by to Mr. Mackenzie, and he offered me the position as bookkeeper on his farm.
I declined; "I want to see a little more of this life," I said; "My place is with the men; you are the past, they are the future. I have my plans, and I see very clearly what I want; it is not within your gift."

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