The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-07-31

save a certain simplicity and freedom
! from conventional linen. AS he greeted
me inoff-hand western fashion, Hooked
into his quiet blue gray eyes and liked
him. He impressed me at onc as a
frank, simple soul of great strength
and marked individuality.
He took me by the hand and half
dragged me into his own little cottage.
1t was plainly his workshop. The
walls were covered with innumerable
autograph letters, newspaper scraps,
clippings from magazines, and prints
Of the faces of his friends and CORE
spondents.
We were soon in the thick of talk.
He refused, however, to allow me to
talk Miller-he wanted to talk of other
things. He would not allow me to
bring up questions concerning his
books, though he talked freely of his
little ranch and his plans for fruit
growing. Little by little, however,
he opened his deeper belielfs to me. He
said he believed in more of individual
freedom in living. He thought most
families lived too close together, there
fore in place of n large house he had
built four small ones.
In n his mother lived and kept
house. There they all ate. In another
he himself slept and wrote; the third
was his brothers, and the fourth was
for his guests. He believes in the open
air. His doors are never shut and he
lives practically without fire the year
round-a thing quite possible on the
protected slope, where the sun always
falls and the wind seldom pierces with
cold.
took this piece of land, he told me,
when it was nothing but barren hill,
side, incredibly sterile and rocky. AL
most hopelessly bleak it must have
been, with little to commend it to any
eye save the superb panorama unrolled
below.
With the work of his own hands he
has led the water down from the canon.
He has terraced the hill sides, built
stone walls, followed out trout ponds
and planted orchards of olives and wal
nut trees.
"I've got a mile of roses," he said,
with smiling pride.
He told me that his habit was to
drive away with his writing in the
forenoon, while in the afternoon he
worked with the man to whom he had
given a part of his plow-land in pay
ment for assistance in other work about
the orchard. Thus it will be seen he
has much the same idea expressed by
Tolstoi as he walks behind his Russian
harrow,
We ate supper in the tint like dining
room of his mothers cottage. He
served in quiet, free hospitality, and
talked on about the new world of lib
erty and equality which he SAW COM
ing.
After the meal we walked out to see
his Italian chestnuts and his olives,
and there I saw more of his mile of
roses. His remarkable water supply
is of great value and enables him to
have springs and fountains at most I'M
expected places. He took a boyish de-
light in showing them to me. One most
notable fountain produced at a mo
ment's notice a marvellous natural
shower which fell upon the roof in
musical roar. This device enabled him
to sit under a fine shower in mid sum-
mer Moons when all the rest of the land
lay parched and choked in dust. It
was a poets thought and, like many
another poets thought, was both beau
tiful and practical.
Coming back to the house and being
wrapped in bearskins to keep off the
chill, we talked art and literature and
altruistic living, while the shadows fell
over the city below and the light was
lifted from the sea. The longer I talked
with him, the more elemental and ad
mirable he became to me, and yet I
saw how easily he could be misunder-
stood and caricatured.
The room had the simplicity of a
tent, and yet it was Enthusiastically the
home of a powerful and original genius.
The choice names and pictures upon
the wall, together with autograph let
ters from all yer England and Amer
lea, showed his wide correspondence
and the catholicity of his taste.
I pressed him at last to talk about
himself. He told me part of his life,
sketching it in outline. He laughed
at the recollection of the wild stories
which still pass current with the unin-