Farmer in the Dell [1919] opens with Ben West­er­veld qui­et­ly endur­ing a life he nev­er want­ed. Once a pros­per­ous and hard-work­ing farmer in south­ern Illi­nois, Ben has now retired to the city, pushed by his wife Bel­la’s desire for a more mod­ern lifestyle. In Chica­go, sur­round­ed by brick and noise, he finds him­self rest­less and increas­ing­ly out of place. Though finan­cial­ly secure, his days are emp­ty, stripped of the pur­pose and pride that came with man­ag­ing his own land. While Bel­la thrives on shop­ping trips and social vis­its, Ben spends hours wan­der­ing the streets, observ­ing a world that does­n’t seem to need him any­more. His yearn­ing isn’t just for the open fields but for the rhythm and dig­ni­ty of mean­ing­ful labor. The city, with all its con­ve­niences, has made him feel invis­i­ble. It’s in this haze of bore­dom and dis­place­ment that he stum­bles upon some­one from his past.

Emma Byers, once a young flame, is now a com­mand­ing busi­ness­woman in Chicago’s bustling pro­duce mar­ket. Their reunion is both a com­fort and a wake-up call for Ben. She sees right through his idle exte­ri­or and calls out what he’s tried to suppress—his heart still belongs to the land. Emma doesn’t pity him; she chal­lenges him, remind­ing him that farm­ing isn’t a back­ward life, but a foun­da­tion­al one. Her suc­cess in the city has not erased her rur­al roots; rather, she has inte­grat­ed them into her pur­pose. Emma’s words strike some­thing in Ben that city life nev­er could—a reminder that being a farmer isn’t about the past, it’s about stay­ing con­nect­ed to what mat­ters. Their brief con­ver­sa­tion plants a seed, one that begins to grow inside him as he recon­sid­ers his place in the world. Per­haps he doesn’t need to stay retired. Per­haps he just needs to reclaim what made him feel alive.

Still, the weight of expec­ta­tions holds Ben in place. Bella’s plans, their grown children’s com­fort, and the con­ve­nience of city life cre­ate a wall between him and the fields he miss­es. His days con­tin­ue with a dull ache, filled with silent walks and polite nods. Then Dike returns home from France, bring­ing with him sto­ries of farm life in Europe—fields cul­ti­vat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, land val­ued for both tra­di­tion and progress. Dike, with his youth and respect for the old ways, looks at his father not with dis­missal, but with admi­ra­tion. Their con­ver­sa­tions about agri­cul­ture turn into some­thing deep­er: a bridge between gen­er­a­tions. For the first time in years, Ben feels tru­ly heard. The pas­sion in Dike’s voice reawak­ens the pride in his own expe­ri­ence.

Inspired, Ben begins to see that he doesn’t have to choose between his past and present. The knowl­edge he holds, once dis­missed as old-fash­ioned, now seems rel­e­vant again. Even Bel­la, who had once insist­ed on urban ease, begins to soft­en as she watch­es father and son share ideas and plans. Farm­ing, she real­izes, isn’t just about hard labor—it’s about nur­tur­ing life, about roots, about resilience. Ben doesn’t make any grand dec­la­ra­tions, but his actions change. He talks of leas­ing a small piece of land out­side the city. He orders agri­cul­tur­al jour­nals again. His hands, idle for too long, begin to itch with the mem­o­ry of plant­i­ng and har­vest. What once felt like a closed chap­ter now feels like the begin­ning of some­thing new.

In the end, Farmer in the Dell [1919] is not about escap­ing the city or roman­ti­ciz­ing the past. It’s about redis­cov­er­ing pur­pose where you least expect it and under­stand­ing that iden­ti­ty isn’t some­thing you retire from. For Ben West­er­veld, farm­ing is more than an occupation—it is a call­ing, a con­nec­tion to the cycle of life, and a source of qui­et pride. The sto­ry doesn’t promise easy answers, but it does offer some­thing more endur­ing: the chance to start again, not by becom­ing some­one new, but by remem­ber­ing who you’ve always been.