Evening Star Newspaper, June 22, 1930, Page 90

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE 22, 1930. NEW W Miss Hurst Writes of Ordinary People—But She Tells of the Dramatic Points of Their Lives. The Idea in This Story Is Not Entirely New, and Yer the IWriter Gives It an Original Turn, T was as if, crash! A skyscraper had collapsed. Or a tornado devastated a forest, or a segment of heaven fallen, obliterating everything in choas. That was the way Frederick Farm- ington felt the noonday he emerged from the effice of the most eminent diagnostician in New York City. Crash. Crash. Crash. Of course, many men before him must have emerged from that same office with the same torment of emotions. But nonetheless, to Frederick Farmington, newly president of his corporation, director of three others of equal importance, vice president of a bank and treasurer of a railroad, it seemed that never had blew smitten a man so in the midst of life! In the midst of life, Farmington had just been ordered out of it! That is to say, cut of the rushing turmoil of his day-by-days. THERE was no longer any use trying to elude \ the symptoms. The eminent diagnostician had spared no words. Farmington's left lung had two growing spots with a threat of one on the right. It was a matter of getting out of town one way or another, his doctor had in- formed him with rather purposeful brutality. By way of the Adirondack express to the pine forests, or by way of mahogany with silver handles. In the midst of life Farmington had been ordered out of it. Standing there on the steps of the doctor’s office in the gray of November, it seemed to Farmington, with depression clamping down upon him, that possibly of the two ways— ostracism to the Adriondacks or the way of mahogany with silver handles—the latter was preferable, Life was so jammed and pulsating an af- fair when you were in the midst of it as Farm- ington was! Life in the pine forests with the soughing of wind at night and the creaking of trees by day was all right for a two-week Summer vacation of it. But ostracism to it for what the doctor had termned an indefinite period—— It was a matter of weeks before Farmington finally decided upon his alternative. The flow of life was too quick in him. Life too dear in him. Banishment to the pine woods if need be. But not death. Farmington was not ready for death. There were worlds to conquer. Earthly fields to dominate. At 43 he had tasted too much ©f the elixir of success to relinquish the cup easily. Life. Life. Life. The battle of Wall Street, the conflict of master industrial minds. The shrewd connivings with the picked busi- ness men of the country. Life. Life. Life. Farmington was greedy for it. The life of the executive. The leader. The captain It was good to live. And so Farmington surrendered to the prospect of temporary exile with the bitterest pain he had ever known in his life. In the midst of life, to the silence of pine forest and the long motionless days in a log cabin AT first there were friends and the days were as clear as steel and the fishing and hunt- ing helped them pass quickly enough, but the camp was on the top of a mountain and the motor roads left off 62 miles before you reached it and train connections were bad and the Winter season in town set in with a bang, and the friends fell away. Those were the days when the loneliness first began to settle upon Farmington. The exile. Breathless, deathless days with only a moun- tain guide, hired to live with him for company, and the stacks of books and a radio machine and a magnificent mechanical piano. Those were the days when the loneliness began to settle. And the beauty of the forest to recede and the sound of waterfall to beat into his brain with monotony, and the yearning for the tramp of men’s feet and the conflict of Wguick minds and the excitement of the fray to eat and gnaw at him. ‘The clear, thin, bitingly cold days of the forest. ‘The pellucid nights with stars like silver Christmas-tree balls waiting to be plucked A waterfall leaping in glory and suddenly frozen there, a shy and startled love- liness. All part of the loneliness. The devastated, eating, gnawing loneliness of this man of af- fairs, Pain in the lungs. Pain in the heart. Days and days of the kind of pain that made him irascible and difficult for even the old moun- tain guide, rather scornful and oblivious of the ways of men, to endure. A gnarled oak tree of a guide. Strange Becrets he knew. Out of the forests, The Sometimes it habits of wild things. The call of the loon. The way of the quick-flanked trout. The foot- fall of the deer. His lore was full of these delicate, lovely intimacies. He knew the look in the eyes of a trapped fox and was bitter at the women who wore their pelts. He loved the prickly little mash of pine cones under him and had a pillow of them on his crude pallet. He spent long days in the woods and came home more silent than they. SOME’I'!MES it seemed to Farmington he must spring at the throat of this man who was so0 complacent with the mystery of the silence. Sometimes, watching him sleep through his own sleepless nights, it seemed to Farmington he must fly at his heart. To tear from it the secret. The secret of his capacity for silence. The silence that was eating into Farmington. Gnawing into him. Making him a little mad with terror of it, G4 4 '*“\\‘1\ e NN N placent 1with the mystery of silence. The radio did its part to help. Yanking the outside world into the heart of the forest. And the mechanical piano and the letters from his friends and the hint of the doings of men in the outside world that came with the weekly parcel post. But those were only moments out of hours. Hours of torment. Hours of trying to read out of the books, to tear out of the piano some- thing to counteract the loneliness. Poor Farmington! It is difficult in the haunts of men to learn how to be alone. Farmington frankly had horror of it. He had all his life been the sort of man who would call up a bore of a friend sooner than dine alone. Or sit through a vipid musical show sooner than spend an evening at home with- out guests. When Farmington so much as traveled from one city to another he took a secretary along for company. And now, up here in the woods, not even the secretaries would remain for more than a few weeks at a time. Only Farmington and his old guide, who talked back to the birds in noises that resembled their.own and who knew 1he Pool o f Peace. By Elizabeth Castle. We have come home ; the gate sags on its hinges, The creepered chimneys lift mo smoky plumes ; Here is my garden with the pool still hidden Within a tangled heart the dusk perfumes. Give me your hand, the silence fairly listens! Do you feel wings and hear a silvery sound Like whispering of little sleepy children— Was that a shadow went across the ground? Wide velvet eyes of crowding pansies haunt me, The larkspur may dissolve in soft blue mist, The rioting of roses on the sundial Makes jest of time with every loop and twist. Come read: “For me the lines have fallen, In pleasant places and I mark bright hours.” But somce are gray with pain and some are burnished Too bright to bear, too smothering with flowers. Owr dreams are homwng doves that carry branches Of rosemary and rue to brush our cheeks: Our eyes that have been focused to the shadow In pools of peace find stars and mountain peaks. S—PByFannie Hurst seemed to Farmington that he must spring at the throat of this gnarled oak of a man who was so com- secrets of the forest that first had entertained, but after a while began to pall on Farming- ton. Two years of this and then, as the saying goes, the house settled. That is, from a nerv- ous, plunging kind of resistance, Farmington receded into a morose kind of acquiescence. Lethargy. Torpor. Or call it what you will, Sometimes days of silence in their little cabin, or the two of them, Farmington and his guide, tramping the woods hour after hour after hour. Stlently. There was so little to say. And, strangely enough, so much to observe—quick, fleeting life of the forest. It shimmered with it. Indeed, it kept the senses alert just being on the watch. The perky head of a chipmunk where you least expected it. The slant of late sunlight through trees. Clear, cold music of waterfall. Ever see a pine tree sway in wind? The bob-tailed leap of a rabbit? The wind- polished bole of a poplar? Farmington was the unconscious student in the mystery of this lore. Sometimes the old guide used secretly to smile. Farmington com- ing home of a dusk with a few choppy words of what he had seen. Mysteries too subtle for many words. Mysteries as lovaly as the leap of a deer. E week before Christmas the great diag- nostician, for a fee that would have beem ransom for a king, journeyed up to the moun- tain shack. The sky and the pines and the silence had done their work well. The two spots on one lung and the threat of a spot on the other had entirely disappeared. Farmington had won. Farmington was released from the foresi and given his ticket of leave back to the haunts of men. And Farmington, after weeks of procastina« tion with himself, did not take it. There was not much explaining to be done about it. In fact, he never even discussed it with his guide. They just sat side by side smoking pipeful after pipeful of silence. The old guide knew, of course. With the sensitive- ness that helped him to know the foot fall of a deer. He knew. The peace had bored its way into Farmington. Far, far from the tramp-tramp- tramp of the feet of men, Farmington had heard the footfall of a deer. And it was worth waiting for to hear the footfall of another. And another. And an- other. And all the strange, new wisdoms that went with knowing and loving the delicate sound of the footfall of a deer. (Copyright, 1930.) Hogs and Corn in Iowa. OWA, out where the tall corn BTOWS, DPro- duces about one-fourth of the ocommercial crop of hogs. The great supply of corn for feeding purposes is probably one of the main causes of this huge output. One favorite method of hog producers on a large scale is to fence off large tracts of corm and other grains and then turn the hogs loose to feed themselves. When onc area is thore oughly eaten over the animals are let inte another, and so on till the feed is consumed ar the animals are ready for the market.