We stayed over night in one of the half-asleep towns on the shores of the river, a town whose history is written upon the headstones in the cemetery, in the center of which the stately meeting-house stands. We met the descendants of those who sleep there, whose pride lies in the fact that their forefathers were the pioneers who fought the Indians, the fevers and each other. Their houses are full of old furniture shipped from England and Holland, and we ate their food and drank their tea from costly silver and exquisite china which they have inherited.
We looked upon the portraits of their ancestors and were told of their virtues and their fame; we saw fine memorials to the past in churches and town halls and rode in their automobiles, to see the farms bequeathed to them. One thing, alas! they have not and never will have--descendants.
On one of the farms we saw a swarthy Italian with a bright red rose behind his ear. His wife and children were working with him in the field, and they were doing this strange thing as they pulled weeds from the onion beds--they were singing. The Herr Director said significantly, "These are the heirs to all this," and I think he was a true prophet.
It is a wonderful thing to invent agricultural machinery and to discover new methods by which two blades of grass can be made to grow where but one grew; yet if only some one could tune our dull American ears, so that our farmers might catch the melody of the singing land and sing with it; if our boys and girls would love wild roses well enough to wear them--if, and that is a very big if--some one could teach us Americans to be proud of having descendants, we might add a new note to the great American out-of-doors, and keep it American.
That night we sat upon a wide verandah, overlooking a valley through which the Hudson rolled majestically; we saw populous cities, picturesque villages and bounteous farms; we looked into the heart of the out-of-doors and I was proud of it and of its free people, who ought to be a grateful people. There was deep silence everywhere; no sound except that of the birds, and they did not sing jubilantly as birds ought to sing in so blessed a place and on so glorious an evening. No one sang except the same Italian who was coming home with his wife and numerous progeny. He still wore the rose behind his ear, although it had faded. Those who sat with us had every luxury and more money than they knew how to spend; but they could not sing, for they were old, children there were none, and if there had been, they would not have been singing--they would have had a victrola.