Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1903-12-11
EVERY DAY.

COulu
/ keep abreast of the worlds affairs? But
in the matter of love l remember always
| that the press deals mostly with fashion
able brides and domestic infelicities
am not one of hose who scott at marriage
in this money age. | believe there are
happy love stories elsewhere than in
books. How can l believe otherwise, |
who have been married happily these
twenty years? 1t is true that l am n
grocer; that l sell cabbages, yes-but with
my head | sell them, not with my heart
John" l say, " a pound of butter for
this little boy"
] say that with my head
" And how old are you, my little MANI"
l say that with my heart. For l too
had little boy once, so that all little boys
who come to buy butter from me make
me forget that 1 am n grocer. l remem-
Der only that l am a man; that l was a
father for little while.
They write us love stories, these young
authors of ours pretty tales sometimes
love stories of the rich, on yachts. in pal
aces; love stories Of the poor. We of the
middle class-tradesfolk they call us
across the sea-we also have our love
stories But we are neither elegant nor
dirty enough, II seems, to be put in books
We do not talk French, we do not talk
dialect Yet-strange is it Motive love
our wives and our children, and, what is
more we are true to them.
Yes, we are true to them. You do not
hear Of us--of our contented marriages
We are not in the court-rooms; we are
not in the press. You will find us day
times in our stores; evenings in our
homes. Your grocer does not ask, Is mar
rage a failure? He goes on selling cab
bages and raising sons.
When | say Love, l do not mean trad
ing coronets for bright new gold. l do
not mean bartering women, here in this
pf fpr ho
other side, for an empty name Neither
do | mean the gamboling of school-chil-
dren which is harmless and sweet
enough; nor the passion for other mems
wives, which is vile.
l mean the love which is not brilliant
when written down. Sometimes, twit-
ungly, they call it the old-fashoned kind
just as they smile at hollyhocks and
praise the rose, the rose. always the rose
the rose, big as one of my cabbages
which grows under glass. Hollyhocks
grow in the open air and the naked sun
They may not be the prettier for that
| am only saying that the love l mean
blooms humbly but lasts-lasts all sum-
mer, in Gods own air
l will tell YOU of such a love You
need not smile | shall not tell you of a
wooing. 1t is not for you or any other
man, how ] won Kate. You ought to
know how honest wives are won Be
sides. though they make the most of it in
story-books, to me the wooing is the least
of love.
Kate married me-that is enough for
you. ] was young then, and a grocers
clerk, boy just out of school. 1t was the
time-you know that time-when you like
poetry and gather arbutus in the spring
| called her Little Flower. 1t was Burns
put that into my head. There, il has
slipped out, that foolish little name.
though it seems sacrilege to breathe
those words. Dear and sacred they are
to me-Nes. to me. the grocer! green
grocer If you like-those two little words
of poetry
She gave a boy to me Children are
burdens. ! hear it said. Well it is only
the lazy selfish people who tell YOU that
the women who fondle lap-dogs. who
dress and Idle their days away; the men
who have no thought save of money and
their own sweet Will They are the ones
who ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS as / do coffee
the trouble of rearing and loving a little
child. Five years We kept that little son
of ours: and of all my life. l tell you.
those were the years | would choose to be
judged by on the Judgment Day.
Now. when my work is done. to find
that little boy again lying in wait for me
behind my door to see his eyes shine and
hear his cry-what would | not give God
FOR that? There never was worry-and
YOU see for Yourself my hair is gray
y
doorway. when that little boy smiled
We we three together lived the life Of
our little town. What that means every
one knows little house in a little yard.
with llacs and geraniums and a plot of
grass which l moved myself on sunday
We went to church. We took home some
one to dinner-one Of her folks or mine.
Then we drove, perhaps. through the
country, prasing the farms Work most
N-work and little play. You live
simply. You do not go in for show You
rear your children. You teach them a
thing or two. You see them married, and
settled down-presenuy with children of
their own to dandIe on your knee Then
they save a place for you on the hillside
But they miss you when you're gone.
Day after day we sit at our table Kate
by the coffee, by the meat Day after
day we talk of the store. of the weather
of the doings and sayings of our little
town-neVer IT word of our love for each
other, If you mean the love- words they
put in books. Pretty enough when we
used to read Burns together and pick the
arbutus, they would only sound foolish
now. They are for young folks, I'm
thinking. They are light and airy like
boys love. They are made for a boys
lips. We have weighed them somehow,
and found them wanting now that our
hair is gray. So. when the old mood
comes to us to say some fond sweet word
We TAIN vi our Httle SON lie is our love
story.
Llacs-you smell our yard in Nav.
There is a bush by the porch where we
sit evenings. We take the blossoms
great scented punches of them filling
Rates arms and mine We go up that
hillside. We lay the flowers on the green
grass-the grass that little boys love to
play in 1t grows as softly there above
them as it grew once beneath their bare
little feet. We go home with empty arms
empty they have been, empty now they
always will be; but it is that. that ! tell
you, that emptiness, that sorrow, the shar-
ing of it through the days and years
which makes our love like the sky, like
the sea.
You see me among my flour barrels
You hear Inc bargaining for cabbages
You see me living the same old workaday
life, day after day.
What a humdrum fellow" you cry.
Why, If l had a son, he would never
dream of being some day like me. He
would not wish to be like his father
Well l know that. l, / too, expected to
be hero when I was a little boy.
And so you see me, yet do not see me-
You see the grocer. You do not see the
man. You see Kate, but you do not see
my Kate. To live together while we are
here, to live together Somewhere over
There-maybe to have our arms full
again that now is our dream, our dream
of happiness.
Yet poetry, they say, is dead. 1t is not
true, / tell you'll, the grocer, tell you
that. 1t lives where love is in the hearts
of men. If it is dead to you, then your
heart is dead. know, for my heart is
living A poem is there, though I cannot
write II. / am q grocer. i cannot rVhme