________________________________________________
_ I have a poppy field. That is, by the grace of God and the good-
nature of editors, I am enabled to place each month divers gold
pieces into a clerical gentleman's hands, and in return for said gold
pieces I am each month reinvested with certain proprietary-rights in
a poppy field. This field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills.
Beneath lies all the world. In the distance, across the silver sweep
of bay, San Francisco smokes on her many hills like a second Rome.
Not far away, Mount Tamalpais thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky;
and midway between is the Golden Gate, where sea mists love to
linger. From the poppy field we often see the shimmering blue of the
Pacific beyond, and the busy ships that go for ever out and in.
"We shall have great joy in our poppy field," said Bess. "Yes," said
I; "how the poor city folk will envy when they come to see us, and
how we will make all well again when we send them off with great
golden armfuls!"
"But those things will have to come down," I added, pointing to
numerous obtrusive notices (relics of the last tenant) displayed
conspicuously along the boundaries, and bearing, each and all, this
legend:
"PRIVATE GROUNDS. NO TRESPASSING."
"Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over our field,
because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our acquaintance?"
"How I abhor such things," said Bess; "the arrogant symbols of
power."
"They disgrace human nature," said I.
"They shame the generous landscape," she said, "and they are
abominable."
"Piggish!" quoth I, hotly. "Down with them!"
We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Bess and I,
looked forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been
long denied. I have forgotten to mention the existence of a house
above the poppy field, a squat and wandering bungalow in which we had
elected to forsake town traditions and live in fresher and more
vigorous ways. The first poppies came, orange-yellow and golden in
the standing grain, and we went about gleefully, as though drunken
with their wine, and told each other that the poppies were there. We
laughed at unexpected moments, in the midst of silences, and at times
grew ashamed and stole forth secretly to gaze upon our treasury. But
when the great wave of poppy-flame finally spilled itself down the
field, we shouted aloud, and danced, and clapped our hands, freely
and frankly mad.
And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of the
first invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out on my
beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a little boy,
their arms filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwonted
benevolence burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! It is
sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All summer
shall they pick poppies in my field. But they must be little
children, I added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the
lower end--this last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows
nodding in the wheat beneath my window. Then the razor descended.
Shaving was always an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the
window again until the operation was completed. And then I was
bewildered. Surely this was not my poppy field. No--and yes, for
there were the tall pines clustering austerely together on one side,
the magnolia tree burdened with bloom, and the Japanese quinces
splashing the driveway hedge with blood. Yes, it was the field, but
no wave of poppy-flame spilled down it, nor did the great golden
fellows nod in the wheat beneath my window. I rushed into a jacket
and out of the house. In the far distance were disappearing two huge
balls of colour, orange and yellow, for all the world like
perambulating poppies of cyclopean breed.
"Johnny," said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, "Johnny,
whenever little girls come into our field to pick poppies, you must
go down to them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner, tell
them it is not allowed."
Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed
earth. Whereupon a neighbour's little girl, at the behest of her
mother, duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather a few
poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and
when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a
semaphore against the sky.
"Little girl!" called I. "Little girl!"
The little girl's legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and in high
elation I sought Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. Nobly she
came to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of
conciliation and explanation to the little girl's mother. But to
this day the little girl seeks cover at sight of me, and I know the
mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise have been.
Came dark, overcast days, stiff, driving winds, and pelting rains,
day on day, without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling-
places like flood-beset rats; and like rats, half-drowned and
gasping, when the weather cleared they crawled out and up the green
Piedmont slopes to bask in the blessed sunshine. And they invaded my
field in swarms and droves, crushing the sweet wheat into the earth
and with lustful hands ripping the poppies out by the roots.
"I shall put up the warnings against trespassing," I said.
"Yes," said Bess, with a sigh. "I'm afraid it is necessary."
The day was yet young when she sighed again:
"I'm afraid, O Man, that your signs are of no avail. People have
forgotten how to read, these days."
I went out on the porch. A city nymph, in cool summer gown and
picture hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read
it through with care. Profound deliberation characterized her
movements. She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head
and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled
under the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in
both her hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her,
and she went away. Then I put up more signs.
At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As
between the destructive forces and the will "to live," the poppies
maintained an equilibrium with their environment. But the city folk
constituted a new and terrible destructive force, the equilibrium was
overthrown, and the poppies wellnigh perished. Since the city folk
plucked those with the longest stems and biggest bowls, and since it
is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, big-bowled
poppies failed to go to seed, and a stunted, short-stemmed variety
remained to the hills. And not only was it stunted and short-
stemmed, but sparsely distributed as well. Each day and every day,
for years and years, the city folk swarmed over the Piedmont Hills,
and only here and there did the genius of the race survive in the
form of miserable little flowers, close-clinging and quick-blooming,
like children of the slums dragged hastily and precariously through
youth to a shrivelled and futile maturity.
On the other hand, the poppies had prospered in my field; and not
only had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the
birds. Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed
unharvested each year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy
seeds were hidden from the keen-eyed songsters. And further,
climbing after the sun through the wheat stalks, the poppies grew
taller and taller and more royal even than the primordial ones of the
open.
So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing, burning
field, were sorely tempted, and, it must be told, as sorely fell.
But no sorer was their fall than that of my beloved poppies. Where
the grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is
moist, and in such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the
roots than to break the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk,
are inclined to move along the line of least resistance, and for each
flower they gathered, there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds
and with them all the possibilities and future beauties of the plant
for all time to come.
One of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman, with white hands and
shifty eyes, especially made life interesting for me. We called him
the "Repeater," what of his ways. When from the porch we implored
him to desist, he was wont slowly and casually to direct his steps
toward the fence, simulating finely the actions of a man who had not
heard, but whose walk, instead, had terminated of itself or of his
own volition. To heighten this effect, now and again, still casually
and carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another poppy. Thus did he
deceitfully save himself the indignity of being put out, and rob us
of the satisfaction of putting him out, but he came, and he came
often, each time getting away with an able-bodied man's share of
plunder.
It is not good to be of the city folk. Of this I am convinced.
There is something in the mode of life that breeds an alarming
condition of blindness and deafness, or so it seems with the city
folk that come to my poppy field. Of the many to whom I have talked
ethically not one has been found who ever saw the warnings so
conspicuously displayed, while of those called out to from the porch,
possibly one in fifty has heard. Also, I have discovered that the
relation of city folk to country flowers is quite analogous to that
of a starving man to food. No more than the starving man realizes
that five pounds of meat is not so good as an ounce, do they realize
that five hundred poppies crushed and bunched are less beautiful than
two or three in a free cluster, where the green leaves and golden
bowls may expand to their full loveliness.
Less forgivable than the unaesthetic are the mercenary. Hordes of
young rascals plunder me and rob the future that they may stand on
street corners and retail "California poppies, only five cents a
bunch!" In spite of my precautions some of them made a dollar a day
out of my field. One horde do I remember with keen regret.
Reconnoitring for a possible dog, they applied at the kitchen door
for "a drink of water, please." While they drank they were besought
not to pick any flowers. They nodded, wiped their mouths, and
proceeded to take themselves off by the side of the bungalow. They
smote the poppy field beneath my windows, spread out fan-shaped six
wide, picking with both hands, and ripped a swath of destruction
through the very heart of the field. No cyclone travelled faster or
destroyed more completely. I shouted after them, but they sped on
the wings of the wind, great regal poppies, broken-stalked and
mangled, trailing after them or cluttering their wake--the most high-
handed act of piracy, I am confident, ever committed off the high
seas.
One day I went a-fishing, and on that day a woman entered the field.
Appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon her,
Bess despatched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more poppies.
The woman calmly went on picking. Then Bess herself went down
through the heat of the day. But the woman went on picking, and
while she picked she discussed property and proprietary rights,
denying Bess's sovereignty until deeds and documents should be
produced in proof thereof. And all the time she went on picking,
never once overlooking her hand. She was a large woman, belligerent
of aspect, and Bess was only a woman and not prone to fisticuffs. So
the invader picked until she could pick no more, said "Good-day," and
sailed majestically away.
"People have really grown worse in the last several years, I think,"
said Bess to me in a tired sort of voice that night, as we sat in the
library after dinner.
Next day I was inclined to agree with her. "There's a woman and a
little girl heading straight for the poppies," said May, a maid about
the bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited their advent. They
plunged through the pine trees and into the fields, and as the roots
of the first poppies were pulled I called to them. They were about a
hundred feet away. The woman and the little girl turned to the sound
of my voice and looked at me. "Please do not pick the poppies," I
pleaded. They pondered this for a minute; then the woman said
something in an undertone to the little girl, and both backs jack-
knifed as the slaughter recommenced. I shouted, but they had become
suddenly deaf. I screamed, and so fiercely that the little girl
wavered dubiously. And while the woman went on picking I could hear
her in low tones heartening the little girl.
I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny,
the son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake the
dead, and I blew and blew, but the jack-knifed backs never unclasped.
I do not mind with men, but I have never particularly favoured
physical encounters with women; yet this woman, who encouraged a
little girl in iniquity, tempted me.
I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle. Flourishing it in a
sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the
invaders. The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the
pines, but the woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least
notice. I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was
embarrassing. There was I, charging down the field like a wild bull
upon a woman who would not get out of the way. I could only slow
down, supremely conscious of how ridiculous it all was. At a
distance of ten feet she straightened up and deigned to look at me.
I came to a halt and blushed to the roots of my hair. Perhaps I
really did frighten her (I sometimes try to persuade myself that this
is so), or perhaps she took pity on me; but, at any rate, she stalked
out of my field with great composure, nay, majesty, her arms brimming
with orange and gold.
Nevertheless, thenceforward I saved my lungs and flourished my rifle.
Also, I made fresh generalizations. To commit robbery women take
advantage of their sex. Men have more respect for property than
women. Men are less insistent in crime than women. And women are
less afraid of guns than men. Likewise, we conquer the earth in
hazard and battle by the virtues of our mothers. We are a race of
land-robbers and sea-robbers, we Anglo-Saxons, and small wonder, when
we suckle at the breasts of a breed of women such as maraud my poppy
field.
Still the pillage went on. Sirens and gun-flourishings were without
avail. The city folk were great of heart and undismayed, and I noted
the habit of "repeating" was becoming general. What booted it how
often they were driven forth if each time they were permitted to
carry away their ill-gotten plunder? When one has turned the same
person away twice and thrice an emotion arises somewhat akin to
homicide. And when one has once become conscious of this sanguinary
feeling his whole destiny seems to grip hold of him and drag him into
the abyss. More than once I found myself unconsciously pulling the
rifle into position to get a sight on the miserable trespassers. In
my sleep I slew them in manifold ways and threw their carcasses into
the reservoir. Each day the temptation to shoot them in the legs
became more luring, and every day I felt my fate calling to me
imperiously. Visions of the gallows rose up before me, and with the
hemp about my neck I saw stretched out the pitiless future of my
children, dark with disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself,
and Bess went about with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends
to entice me into taking a vacation. Then, and at the last gasp,
came the thought that saved me: WHY NOT CONFISCATE? If their forays
were bootless, in the nature of things their forays would cease.
The first to enter my field thereafter was a man.
I was waiting for him And, oh joy! it was the "Repeater" himself,
smugly complacent with knowledge of past success. I dropped the
rifle negligently across the hollow of my arm and went down to him.
"I am sorry to trouble you for those poppies," I said in my oiliest
tones; "but really, you know, I must have them."
He regarded me speechlessly. It must have made a great picture. It
surely was dramatic. With the rifle across my arm and my suave
request still ringing in my ears, I felt like Black Bart, and Jesse
James, and Jack Sheppard, and Robin Hood, and whole generations of
highwaymen.
"Come, come," I said, a little sharply and in what I imagined was the
true fashion; "I am sorry to inconvenience you, believe me, but I
must have those poppies."
I absently shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. Without a
word he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence, but no
longer casual and careless was his carriage, I nor did he stoop to
pick the occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of the
"Repeater." I could see by his eyes that he did not like me, and his
back reproached me all the way down the field and out of sight.
From that day the bungalow has been flooded with poppies. Every vase
and earthen jar is filled with them. They blaze on every mantel and
run riot through all the rooms. I present them to my friends in huge
bunches, and still the kind city folk come and gather more for me.
"Sit down for a moment," I say to the departing guest. And there we
sit in the shade of the porch while aspiring city creatures pluck my
poppies and sweat under the brazen sun. And when their arms are
sufficiently weighted with my yellow glories, I go down with the
rifle over my arm and disburden them. Thus have I become convinced
that every situation has its compensations.
Confiscation was successful, so far as it went; but I had forgotten
one thing; namely, the vast number of the city folk. Though the old
transgressors came no more, new ones arrived every day, and I found
myself confronted with the titanic task of educating a whole cityful
to the inexpediency of raiding my poppy field. During the process of
disburdening them I was accustomed to explaining my side of the case,
but I soon gave this over. It was a waste of breath. They could not
understand. To one lady, who insinuated that I was miserly, I said:
"My dear madam, no hardship is worked upon you. Had I not been
parsimonious yesterday and the day before, these poppies would have
been picked by the city hordes of that day and the day before, and
your eyes, which to-day have discovered this field, would have beheld
no poppies at all. The poppies you may not pick to-day are the
poppies I did not permit to be picked yesterday and the day before.
Therefore, believe me, you are denied nothing."
"But the poppies are here to-day," she said, glaring carnivorously
upon their glow and splendour.
"I will pay you for them," said a gentleman, at another time. (I had
just relieved him of an armful.) I felt a sudden shame, I know not
why, unless it be that his words had just made clear to me that a
monetary as well as an aesthetic value was attached to my flowers.
The apparent sordidness of my position overwhelmed me, and I said
weakly: "I do not sell my poppies. You may have what you have
picked." But before the week was out I confronted the same gentleman
again. "I will pay you for them," he said. "Yes," I said, "you may
pay me for them. Twenty dollars, please." He gasped, looked at me
searchingly, gasped again, and silently and sadly put the poppies
down. But it remained, as usual, for a woman to attain the sheerest
pitch of audacity. When I declined payment and demanded my plucked
beauties, she refused to give them up. "I picked these poppies," she
said, "and my time is worth money. When you have paid me for my time
you may have them." Her cheeks flamed rebellion, and her face,
withal a pretty one, was set and determined. Now, I was a man of the
hill tribes, and she a mere woman of the city folk, and though it is
not my inclination to enter into details, it is my pleasure to state
that that bunch of poppies subsequently glorified the bungalow and
that the woman departed to the city unpaid. Anyway, they were my
poppies.
"They are God's poppies," said the Radiant Young Radical,
democratically shocked at sight of me turning city folk out of my
field. And for two weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. I
sought her out and explained. I explained at length. I told the
story of the poppy as Maeterlinck has told the life of the bee. I
treated the question biologically, psychologically, and
sociologically, I discussed it ethically and aesthetically. I grew
warm over it, and impassioned; and when I had done, she professed
conversion, but in my heart of hearts I knew it to be compassion. I
fled to other friends for consolation. I retold the story of the
poppy. They did not appear supremely interested. I grew excited.
They were surprised and pained. They looked at me curiously. "It
ill-befits your dignity to squabble over poppies," they said. "It is
unbecoming."
I fled away to yet other friends. I sought vindication. The thing
had become vital, and I needs must put myself right. I felt called
upon to explain, though well knowing that he who explains is lost. I
told the story of the poppy over again. I went into the minutest
details. I added to it, and expanded. I talked myself hoarse, and
when I could talk no more they looked bored. Also, they said insipid
things, and soothful things, and things concerning other things, and
not at all to the point. I was consumed with anger, and there and
then I renounced them all.
At the bungalow I lie in wait for chance visitors. Craftily I broach
the subject, watching their faces closely the while to detect first
signs of disapprobation, whereupon I empty long-stored vials of wrath
upon their heads. I wrangle for hours with whosoever does not say I
am right. I am become like Guy de Maupassant's old man who picked up
a piece of string. I am incessantly explaining, and nobody will
understand. I have become more brusque in my treatment of the
predatory city folk. No longer do I take delight in their
disburdenment, for it has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and
distasteful task. My friends look askance and murmur pityingly on
the side when we meet in the city. They rarely come to see me now.
They are afraid. I am an embittered and disappointed man, and all
the light seems to have gone out of my life and into my blazing
field. So one pays for things.
PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.
April 1902. _
Read next: The Shrinkage of the Planet
Read previous: Goliah
Table of content of Revolution and Other Essays
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
