I love these rudimentary cities that were conceived in haste and greed and never rose to suffer the scarifying effects of human habitation, cities of not-quite-forgotten hopes, untouched by neon and by filth. And I love the beaches too, out beyond the cottage colony, where they are wild and free still, visited by the sandpipers that retreat before each wave, like children, and by an occasional hip-sprung farmwife hunting shells, or sometimes by a veteran digging for Donax variabilis to take back to his hungry mate in the trailer camp.

  The sound of the sea is the most time-effacing sound there is. The centuries reroll in a cloud and the earth becomes young again when you listen, with eyes shut, to the sea—a young green time when the water and the land were just getting acquainted and had known each other for only a few billion years and the mollusks were just beginning to dip and creep in the shallows; and now man the invertebrate, under his ribbed umbrella, anoints himself with oil and pulls on his Polaroid glasses to stop the glare and stretches out his long brown body at ease upon a towel on the warm sand and listens.

  The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: “So soon?”

  [ March 1941 ]

  THE TRAILER PARK

  Before sitting down to draft a preamble to the constitution of a world federation of democracies, uniting free people under one banner, I decided I would mosey over to the trailer park at the edge of town and ask some of the campers whether they favored any such idea as union. It’s all very well to believe in supranationalism, but it’s even better to find out whether somebody else at a distance believes in it—because that’s what makes it supranational.

  The trailer park in this Florida city is an ideal place in which to talk over big affairs with people from far away. In the first place, all your traveling is done for you—the people of Pennsylvania and Oregon and Indiana are right there in one big lot, waiting for you. In the second place, trailer people have time to think about life and to live it and to discuss it. Very few of them have any place they must go to in the morning, as to an office, and after they have breakfasted and emptied the sink bucket and tidied up and watered the geranium, they can subside in a folding chair in the sun and begin to think. In some respects a trailer park is a Utopian society, for it consists of persons each of whom is occupying the same amount of space in the community, and none of whom is working very hard at anything in particular, and all of whom are engaged in perfecting the art of living; and although trailer society, like every other society I have ever examined, has its little caste system, economically it is rather a success: every day is a holiday and every night is bingo.

  At any rate, I decided I would ask a few American tourists what they thought about union. Even in a trailer park it is not exactly easy to walk up to a stranger and say: “Good morning, do you think the remaining democracies of the world should unite?” but in my experience with nomads I have found them ready for what comes and possessed of a candid interest in oddities of all sorts—and I have never minded being thought a little queer.

  The park, situated in a grove of cabbage palms, was in its mid-morning doldrums when I entered it to begin my investigations. The trailers were moored evenly in long streets, their silver tops gleaming in the sun. Many of the occupants had left for the day, to attend a nearby pageant that had the compelling charm of being absolutely free. In the social hall a victrola revolved with a daytime drowsiness, and through the open door I could see about twenty couples maneuvering around the floor with not much gaiety but with a vast content. Past the busy shuffleboard pavilion a man strolled with a Maltese cat in leash, using a little white dog as a lead pony. Under every trailer, in the deep shade, dangled the hose connections through which life drained. Neighborliness pervaded the streets, and the faint memory of fried eggs. I passed a small building that said “Garden Club” on the door; and in fact almost every trailer had some sort of tiny landscape triumph—a nasturtium edged with clam shells or a carved pickaninny fishing in a parched pool. Several of the trailer wives were busy in the open-air laundry over the tubs and ironing boards. And at the far end of the park, where tall Australian pines cast their lengthy and luxuriant shade across a weed-grown avenue, a mocking bird sat on a bough and ran over a few scales. This was a peaceful place, this camp—a Garden of Eden on wheels, capable of picking its own latitudes and following the gentle weather around the year, a haven in which every occupant had brought his life into focus by compressing it into the minimum space, a miracle of internal arrangement plus mobility.

  Streets in the park were numbered, and on Third Street I found Henry Lynd polishing his front door. (Trailer people are inveterate housekeepers, and their standards are high. It is my opinion that trailers appeal particularly to persons of a neat turn of mind because a trailer gives a man a better outlet than the average fixed home, which is apt to be somewhat sprawling and which lacks the unity and coherence so dear to orderly natures.) Mr. Lynd was surprised to see me. “I just want to ask you,” I said, “whether you would be in favor of a union between the United States, Great Britain, and such other self-governing peoples as were able and willing to join.”

  Mr. Lynd stopped polishing and stared at me with a shy, accusing look. His lips quivered. “Why … yes, I would,” he said.

  “You think it’s a good idea to unite, really?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Mr. Lynd.

  I was hoping that he would enlarge upon the subject and I tried to lead back into it from different angles, but all he said was “Yes.” It became clear to me as I worked on Mr. Lynd that, although he was a federalist by instinct, he didn’t want to have to tell a stranger why, and considered it his privilege not to have to. Which seemed fair enough. So we got talking along broader lines and he told me he was from Michigan, near Lansing, and that the Florida plates on his car were because he had a child in school here, and you had to buy plates, then you could send a child to school. He said the park was fine: cost him and his family two dollars a week for the three of them, which included washrooms, five kilowatts a week for the plug-in, and dancing. I thanked Mr. Lynd and left, and he returned to polishing his green job. The score was 1-0, favor of the United States of the World. I went on to Fifth Street over near the railroad.

  There I spied a man from Michigan and a man from Pennsylvania, sitting together under one canopy. I joined and made it three. “Gentlemen,” I said, “if it’s all the same to you, I want to ask whether you favor the United States forming a union with Great Britain and other free nations.”

  “Hell, no!” said Michigan, who had a firm chin and the look of a man who could handle himself without the help of any federation of powers. “The British Empire is the smartest bunch of diplomats in the world, and every time we’ve been mixed up with ‘em they’ve out-smarted us and we’ve had to take the little end of it. We might want to form a union with them, but before they got through they’d have everything and we’d have nothing.”

  Pennsylvania nodded.

  “Listen,” continued Michigan, “why should we trust England? What did she do in the last war? We won it for her, and then the agreement was that Germany wasn’t to rearm, and England sat there, thirty miles away across the Channel, and let Germany build the biggest fighting machine in all history. Why should I want to join England? It would be the same story all over again.”

  “That the way you feel too?” I asked Pennsylvania.

  “Sure,” he said, “but I say we ought to give all possible aid to Britain. We got to help her all we can, to protect ourselves. But not by sending men—not one soldier, no, sir.”

  “You can’t trust ‘em around the corner,” growled Michigan impatiently. “We can’t understand Europe over here anyway. Too many wheels within wheels. But it doesn’t make any difference—this war is going to crack up in the Balkans, like it always does.”

  “No union for you gentlemen, then?” I said.

  They shook their heads and I left. Score 2-1, favor of isolation.

  On Eighth Street I saw an Iowa tag. The owner, a tall, spare, inhospitable man, was slowly rubbing petroleum jelly on the walls of his curious home. He was not glad to see me, but I asked my question.

  “Union with England?” he sneered. “It’s damn near that now, isn’t it?”

  “Well, sort of,” I apologized. “But not really—not a real union.”

  “We have to keep helping them fellers every twenty years or so. What’s the good? There’s no end to it.”

  “Well, what are we going to do?” I asked.

  “Keep what money we got right here. Germany ain’t goin’ to make a landing in this country.”

  “No union for you, then?” I said.

  “Nah,” he replied.

  “Where you going from here?” I asked.

  “Key West,” he said, wiping off some jelly with a rag.

  With the score 3-1 and the sun high in the sky, I continued up Eighth Street to Vaughn Avenue, where I sighted an amiable little man in comfortable shoes. He was relaxing near the doorstep of his Vagabond Coach, basking in a patch of shade formed by a small cabbage palm and a large electric-light pole. He wore a yachting cap. Under the trailer was a big wash tub with the name “Repe” painted on it.

  “Good morning, Captain Repe!” I said, easing myself down on the rear bumper of his Chevrolet and turning on my question. The captain of the Vagabond regarded me with amazement and pleasure.

  “Unite with other democratic countries?” he began rapidly. “You bet we better. It’s the only sensible thing to do. It’s our chance. I believe that people who believe in free government should get together on it, permanent, same as our States. That guy in Germany is going places. Something’s got to be done. It’s like a sore thumb; the more Germany gets, the more she takes. Of course eventually the whole thing will crack. Bound to. Germany can’t police the entire world. But when? That’s the question. We can’t afford to sit around and wait. A man like Hitler has guts—you got to admire him no matter how much you despise what he does. We got to have guts too. We got to show that democratic countries mean business.” He paused, and shifted knees.

  I said: “Of course lots of people are against the idea of a world federation—I’ve been asking people in the park.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Repe, in a confidential tone, “a lot of these people, you ask ‘em a big question like that and they’ll try to find out what you think about it so they can agree with you, but me, anybody asks me anything I tell him exactly what I think. I come in for a lot of kidding around here, on account of this cap. Everybody calls me Cap. I’m one of the oldtimers in this park, but plenty of people don’t know any other name for me but Cap.”

  “Are you a seafaring man?” I inquired.

  “Naw. It’s just a cap.”

  “Well, it’s a good one,” I said, getting up to go. “And I appreciate this interview and hope that some day we shall see the world united, with freedom and justice for all.”

  Score was now 3-2 against it.

  The next man I asked was an elderly fellow from Indiana. He seemed staggered by the question, and looked as though he were about to cry. “You better ask my son-in-law, not me,” he said sorrowfully. “He’s just around the other side of the trailer.”

  I found the son-in-law applying black paint to the trim, using a small brush. Before he started to answer my question he put aside his brush, closed the can, and sat down on a box in the center of his garden between the petunia and the calendula. “Yes,” he said, “we must combine forces. Democracy cannot continue to exist in Europe without the aid of democracy here. I give Hitler better than a fifty per cent chance to win this war, and I can’t see how there would be any self-government left anywhere if Hitler wins. A lot of people will tell you they don’t care about Europeans and that we Americans have no stake in it, but I think we have. If Hitler wins we lose our world markets, and our standard of living goes down. We’ll eat of course, but what will it be like?”

  The father-in-law had crept shyly around and was listening proudly to his son’s discourse, openly admiring his ability to put things like that into words—that stuff about world markets and everything. Wonderful to be able to express yourself and answer questions! I thanked them. The score was now tied, 3-3, and the morning was almost gone. The next man would decide whether the free people of the globe were to blunder along in narrow nationalistic groups, always at sixes and sevens, interminably at war, wasting their strength and dissipating their resources, or were to join hands and establish a bold new planetary society in which all men of good will could live full and fruitful lives. In this tight spot, and with the weight of my responsibility hanging round my neck like a chain, it was my incredible good fortune to encounter, a few yards from his factory-built Trail-A-Home, Mr. John Kohlmann, retired, formerly of the North Bergen, N. J., police force. Mr. Kohlmann had the agreeable relaxed look of a man who has spent much of his life spying on felons and footpads and who has at last given it up and turned his face to the sun. When I cautiously asked him if he would approve a federation of democracies, Mr. Kohlmann replied: “Sure!” in a hearty voice.

  “You would?” I murmured, dazed.

  “Sure, sure,” he said.

  “Why would you?” I asked, feebly trying to maintain a detached position, but thinking to myself, union wins, 4-3.

  “Why? Because suppose we get licked, it’s gonna be tough. That’s why.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “If we get licked, it’s gonna be tough. Say,” I continued, when a sudden thought struck me, “I used to live right across the river from North Bergen.”

  “Where?” asked Mr. Kohlmann, brightening.

  “West Thirteenth Street, Manhattan.”

  “No kid, did ya?” said Mr. Kohlmann, enthusiastically.

  “You’re damn tootin’ I did,” I said.

  “Well, what d’ya know,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a small woild.”

  I came back home and sat down to work on my preamble. But it was easy work, and seemed to write itself. “We, the people of this small world,” I began, “in order to form a more perfect union and before things get too tough …”

  [ April 1941 ]

  SPRING

  Notes on springtime and on anything else of an intoxicating nature that comes to mind.

  There is considerable doubt at this writing that my hog has been bred, although she has been keeping company. Her condition is watched with interest by pigmen hereabouts, who are awaiting (as I am) the beginning of the month to see who is right. I will announce the results of this contest later if I think of it. Last year she had seven, on a Sunday. They were blithe and bonny and good and gay, except the runt—who was merely blithe and good and gay.

  Anne Carroll Moore, of the New York Public Library, writes me that a representative of Superman, Inc., paid a call on the children’s room the other day. He was an average-sized man (nothing super) and was armed with a large poster depicting Superman (full strength) with a list of recommended books. The list included Robin Hood and King Arthur. He told Miss Moore that boys and girls would read those books if they knew that Superman approved of them. He said his hero carried great weight now, and that teachers in public schools frequently commanded instant obedience from their pupils by invoking Superman. As far as I could gather from Miss Moore’s letter, he didn’t say anything about Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Supermen and Little Superwomen.

  This family, incidentally, has just finished reading Little Women aloud. It was our after-dinner mint of the winter of 1940–41; reading time, three months and ten days. One of the wrenching experiences that a person can wish on himself nowadays is to read about Europe in terms of Amy and Laurie.

  The intoxication of spring is a figure of speech to most creatures, but to a lamb it means a real drunk. The very young lambs who stick to a straight milk diet keep their feet pretty well, but the older ones (the ones of high school age) stagger back from the pasture and after weaving about the barnyard for a few minutes, collapse. They froth at the mouth, and you can hear them grind their teeth forty feet away. It is a glorious jag, this spring drunk. I keep my syringe loaded with tea, and administer it—between paragraphs—to the worst cases. This year is not as bad as last year, for I have fewer lambs and more tea.

  Haven’t seen a snake yet, but I haven’t been across to the rock pile and lifted a rock.

  A pair of starlings are renovating the knothole in the Balm 0’ Gilead on the front lawn, redecorating and trying to get everything done (eggs laid, birds hatched and launched) before the arrival of the flickers, who walk right in regardless.

  There is a stanza in Robert Frost’s poem “Two Tramps in Mud Time” that describes an April moment when air and sky have a vernal feeling, but suddenly a cloud crosses the path of the sun and a bitter little wind finds you out, and you’re back in the middle of March. Everyone who has lived in the country knows that sort of moment—the promise of warmth, the raised hope, the ruthless rebuff.