"The Code: The New England Philosophy of Work in the Poetry of Robert Frost"
David B. Raymond (draymond@nmcc.edu)
Northern Maine Community College (NMCC)
Author Bio: David B. Raymond is the Chairman of the Arts and Sciences Department at Northern Maine Community College, where he has taught courses in the humanities for the past thirty years. His research includes papers on Henry David Thoreau's philosophy of work, the literary reception of Thoreau's views on work, and his essay "Life without Principle." In addition, he recently published a paper on work as a theme for English classes published in Teaching English in the Two-Year College.
Robert Frost is often praised for his sympathetic and insightful poems about rural New Englanders, their voice, their use of language, and their way of life. In many of these poems, such as "Mowing,” "After Apple Picking,” "The Tuft of Flowers,” "A Lone Striker,” "Death of the Hired Man," and "From Plane to Plane," work is the focal point. Critics often read these poems as metaphorical commentary on the craft of poetry, overlooking the practical and sage advice about work that Frost gleaned from his days living in rural New Hampshire. As he worked with and observed farmers and farm hands at work, he learned they were governed by a Code that required them to work hard and work well. Those who worked by the Code found satisfaction in their work and gained the respect of the community. In time Frost realized that the Code provided a foundation for a satisfying life that made getting a living and living itself into a coherent whole.
Two poems, in particular, capture the essence of this philosophy of work. "The Code---Heroics" (1914), a narrative poem that is a story within a story, articulates the essential principles of the Code---work hard and work well. The first story defines the Code. It begins with three men gathering hay in an open field. One walks off, the other two remain. The "town-bred farmer" does not understand the sudden departure of his hired hand, James. The other farmhand points out that the farmer's comments on the impending rain implied that James was not working hard enough. James was slow of thought but quick to take offense once he pieced together the implied, or so he thought, criticism of his work. When the farmer pleads innocence, the farmhand explains the Code that rural men live by: "The hand that knows his business won't be told/To do work better or faster---those two things." To work "faster" is to work hard at a steady pace. One must not lag behind the plow nor be driven like a mule. Hard work is done in a methodical, steady manner, like the swinging of an axe chopping wood. The pace is continual enough to get work down without exhausting the woodcutter in the process. A good example is found in "From Plane to Plane" (1948). In this poem, two men are hoeing a cornfield. When they get to the end of the row, they walk back to the starting point to start another row. Pike, the old farmhand, explains to his young protégé that by so doing, he is able to pace himself and get more done in the run of a day than he would if he hoed both ways.
Doing work "better" means doing it the right way. This requires the worker to master the skills associated with the task. Mastering the skill and doing it well brings pleasure to the act of work. As Frost preaches at the end of "Two Tramps in Mud Time,” "Only where love and need are one/And the work is play for mortal stakes,/Is the deed ever really done/For Heaven and the future's sake." This is seen in the firewood produced by the woodcutter in "Two Tramps in Mud Time." His blows are precise, hitting the center mark with each swing, splitting the wood into sticks of wood that are smooth and splinterless. Not only is the work done right, but the narrator also loves his task, reveling in the act of splitting wood as well as the finished product.
New Englanders viewed adherence to the Code as a matter of personal integrity. They derived their sense of worth from working hard and well. If a man "values what he is" he will do work right and push back against anyone who charges that he is not living up to the Code. This is the other reason Pike will not hoe both ways; it offends his sense of dignity to work without ceasing. It is also the basis for the farmhand's "heroic" defense of the Code in the second story of "The Code." After James has departed the field, the remaining farmhand tells the tale of a local farmer who bullied his men into working harder in the hayfield than required by the Code. At the turn of the nineteenth century, hay was cut by hand, loaded loose onto a wagon, and transported to the barn, where it was piled in a loft above or a bay below the barn's first floor. Sanders was a notoriously hard-working farmer who loved to get behind his men as they mowed the hay and threatened to cut off their legs with his scythe if they did not keep ahead of his "driving" pace. None dared to stand up to him for fear of losing their jobs until the farmhand took a stand.
One summer, the farmhand was working for Sanders, gathering hay from the fields. The farmhand had built the load well and was ready to empty it into a bay where Sanders awaited to pile the hay. The man on the load has the easier part of the work as he simply has to shovel the piles of hay off of the wagon down into the bay. With characteristic bravado, Sanders hollers for the farmhand to "Let her come." In the parlance of the farm, this is more than a call to start; it is a challenge to work harder. When the farmhand asks Sanders to repeat his challenge, he does, but more softly the second time. Having built the load well, the farmhand knew how to unload it quickly. In short order, he dumps the entire load on top of Sanders, burying him under the pile. Or so he thought, for Sanders escaped the onslaught of hay and retreated to the house where he sulked in humiliation. His challenge to work faster was met by his hired man, who gave the farmer a dose of his own bullying. When asked by the town-bred farmer if Sanders fired him for trying to kill him by burying him in the hay, the farmhand replied, "Discharge me? No! He knew I did just right." Sanders may have abused the Code, but he lived by its values. He had questioned the work ethic of his employee and paid the cost for his challenge.
Some may see this as an outdated mode of working, adhered to by the equivalent of the "old-stone savage" of the "Mending Wall," but the Code was more than that. It was a vital underpinning for a way of life that included work as a key and beneficial component. This vision of the good life is most clearly stated in "Two Tramps in Mud Time, or a Full-Time Interest" (1934). The poem begins with a challenge by two unemployed lumberjacks who were trying to entice the narrator to hire them to split his wood, drifts into a description of the act of splitting wood and the surroundings before circling back to the original question and concludes with a philosophical reflection on the role of work in our lives. Throughout the first six stanzas, Frost shows us the Code in action. One gets a sense of the narrator’s pride in his work with the description of the accuracy of his blows and the splinterless pieces of wood that come from his handiwork. We see the sheer physical joy that comes from chopping wood steadily in rhythm, his "muscles rocking soft/And smooth and moist in vernal heat." The narrator enjoys not just the chopping but the place of work. Part of the pleasure of splitting wood is time spent in nature, not simply soaking up its beauty, but being one with the woods, listening to a bluebird, feeling the warmth of a spring day, the chill of an April breeze, and feeling the subtle changes of the ground underfoot from frozen to muddy as the day wears on.
These reflections on his work lead the narrator to an epiphany in the final stanzas. Work is not simply about doing what we must to make money; it is about doing what we love to provide for what we need. In this way, we can make getting our living inviting and glorious, for if getting a living is not glorious, to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau in "Life without Principle," then living will not be either. Frost had learned from his fellow New Englanders that love and need do not need to exist in twain; they exist as one in the Code. Farmers work at a variety of tasks to sustain the farm. Those who work hard and do it well will provide for their needs. Those who do it better will derive pleasure from a job well done. Work will become play for mortal stakes, as Frost preaches at the end of the poem, "Only where love and need are one/And the work is play for mortal stakes,/Is the deed ever really done/For Heaven and the future's sake." This is more than a rhetorical flourish; it is a philosophical declaration of the role of work in a life well-lived. Given Robert Frost's abiding desire to provide a momentary stay against the confusion in his poetry, it is time we take seriously the work wisdom found in his poetry.