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Title: My Friends at Brook Farm

Author: John Van Der Zee Sears

Release Date: April 9, 2003 [EBook #7302]
[Most recently updated: January 31, 2020]

Language: English

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[Illustration]




My Friends at Brook Farm

by John Van Der Zee Sears

TO MY FRIEND
JOSEPH HORNOR COATES, Esq.
OF PHILADELPHIA




Contents

 Chapter I.     THE OLD COLONIE
 Chapter II.    FRIEND GREELEY
 Chapter III.   A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
 Chapter IV.    A BAD BEGINNING
 Chapter V.     A GOOD ENDING
 Chapter VI.    ENTERTAINMENTS
 Chapter VII.   THE SCHOOL
 Chapter VIII.  ODDMENTS
 Chapter IX.    FOURIER AND THE FARMERS
 Chapter X.     UNTO THIS LAST

ILLUSTRATIONS

 JOHN VAN DER ZEE SEARS
 HORACE GREELEY
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON
 “THE HIVE”
 CHARLES A. DANA
 THE PAGEANT
 A PIONEER KINDERGARTEN
 NATANIEL HAWTHORNE

[Illustration: Portrait of the Author: John Van Der Zee Sears]




CHAPTER I.
THE OLD COLONIE


In May, 1624, the Dutch packet New Netherlands sailed up the Hudson
River to the head of navigation, bringing a company of eighteen
families under the leadership of Adrian Joris. The immigrants landed at
a little trading post called Beaverwick kept by one Tice Oesterhout, a
pioneer hunter, married to a Mohawk Squaw. In a few days a party of
Indians, probably Mohawks, waited on the newcomers and politely made
inquiry as to their object in entering upon Indian lands without notice
or permission; Tice Oesterhout and his wife acting as interpreters.
Joris replied that they came in peace and hoped to abide in peace on
friendly terms with the Indians. He was told that he and his people
would be welcome if they joined the universal peace union of the
Iroquois, and not otherwise. This proposition the settlers agreed to by
acclamation. In due course the General Council of the Five Nations
accepted the Colony as a member of the Iroquois Federation. Joris was
recognized as the Civil Chief of the little community, and, as he was a
Walloon, his people became the Walloon Nation of the Great Peace
Alliance. The Great Peace was the treaty forming the basis of the
Iroquois Federation. The Colonists, instead of making a treaty with the
Indians, gave their adhesion to one already made, thereby securing
safety and a practical monopoly of the fur trade on the upper Hudson.
They sent annual presents to the Iroquois General Council, which were
doubtless received as tribute in recognition of sovereignty, but the
Walloon Nation did not seem to care very much about the sovereignty
business so long as the fur business continued to prosper, as it did
for the next half century.

Two score or so of Walloons did not constitute a very formidable nation
but the men were reinforced by the women who had an equal voice not
only in local affairs but in the General Council of the Federation.

The settlers built their houses on the Indian trail leading Westward to
which they gave the name of Beaver street—their grand boulevard which
must have been two or three squares long. Beaver Street was the main
highway of the Walloon Nation and was the center of the “Old Colonie”
as the Dutch neighborhood was subsequently called. Under English rule,
the “Old Colonie” or Beaverwick was merged with Fort Orange and
Rensselaerwick, these, collectively, being named Albany in honor of the
Duke of York, Albany being one of his titles.

The Dutch of the “Old Colonie” did not take kindly to the supremacy of
the English. They obeyed the laws and the constituted authorities but
they stubbornly maintained their autonomy as far as practicable,
holding aloof from their English neighbors, keeping to their own
language, their own manners and customs, and their own habits of life,
generation after generation. As the “Old Colonie” extended its borders
and new elements were added to its population, these Dutch
characteristics were gradually modified and finally disappeared
altogether, but they resisted modern influences many years and as late
as the middle of the nineteenth century, evidences of Dutch ancestry
were still to be noticed among the people of the “Old Colonie.”

My father’s house, where I was born, stood on the south side of Beaver
street next to that of the Ostranders where the last Walloon Civil
Chief was said to have lived. As a child I heard Dutch spoken in the
street, in the stores and the market. We spoke Dutch, more or less, at
home, and no other language at my grandfather’s farm. The Sears family
came from Cape Cod, but my mother was a Van Der Zee, and although the
first Van Der Zee came from Holland in 1642, the family was as Dutch as
ever in 1842, two centuries later. Mother learned English, at school
but spoke it very little until after her marriage, and then crooned
nursery rhymes in Dutch to her children; “Trip a trop a tronches,” “Wat
zegt Mynhur Papa,” etc.

My father’s store was “on the Pier,” which is equivalent to saying he
was a flour merchant. The Pier was a sort of bulkhead between the canal
basin and the river, and it was occupied by a single row of buildings,
all of which were flour stores. The Genesee Valley was a famous wheat
growing country in the first half of the nineteenth century, and the
grain was ground in Rochester and shipped down the Erie Canal to
Albany, the receiving and distributing center for the trade. My father
made business trips to New York, and, sometimes, as far east as Boston,
in those days a long journey. He usually arranged to go “down the
river” in the Spring, having, beside his own affairs, commissions to
fill as delegate to one or more of the May Conventions.

The May Conventions were annual gatherings of religious bodies,
philanthropic organizations, reform associations, literary
associations, educational associations and all sorts of associations
for the improvement of the human race in general and the American
people in particular. The Friends yearly Meeting, the Conference of the
American Anti-Slavery societies, the Grahamites or Vegetarians, the
Temperance advocates and other upholders of beneficent, benevolent, and
Utopian ideals assembled on these occasions, and with much eloquence,
made it clear to the meanest understanding that the universal adoption
of the principles especially professed by each would do away with all
evil in the world and bring about a return of the Golden Age.

My mother did not always attend the May Conventions, but whenever she
went, she took one of us children with her. My first visit to New York
was made as an unqualified member of the Albany delegation to something
or other, I forget what. One thing I do not forget, however, and that
is hearing Horace Greeley make an address, and afterward being puffed
up with pride when the orator chatted familiarly with his small admirer
at dinner in our hotel on Barclay Street.

When my mother was absent from home, the family was left in charge of
our courtesy Aunt Catholina Van Olinda who kept the house with my elder
sister Althea, while I was dispatched for the time to my grandfather’s
farm. I was very much at home on the farm and spent many happy days
there in early childhood, being regarded as a sort of heir apparent by
the principal personages there, namely, my grandfather, John Van Der
Zee the elder, and Tone and Cleo. The last named, Antony and Cleopatra,
to speak properly, were ancient negroes born and brought up on the farm
and rarely leaving it in all their long lives. They were slaves,
inasmuch as they disdained to be emancipated, and “free niggers” they
looked down on with contempt. They belonged to the Van Der Zee place
and the place belonged to them, and not to belong to anybody or to any
place was, to their apprehension, very like being a houseless and
homeless pauper. As I was John Van Zee the younger, according to their
genealogy the natural successor of Baas Hans, they extended to me
assurances of their most distinguished consideration. My father,
Charles Sears, was not in the line of succession, he being English or
in other words a foreigner. They tolerated him, partly because he spoke
to them in Dutch, the only language they knew or cared anything about,
and partly because he was, after all, a member of the family by
marriage. As he always brought a book in hand when visiting the farm,
they made sure he was a drukker—that is, a printer or bookseller or
something of that vain and frivolous description. Cleo attained great
age, overrunning the century mark. In her later years she came by
inheritance to my mother, and so rather curiously, it happened that
while my father openly professed anti-slavery sentiments, my mother was
a slaveholder, presumably one of the last of that class in the state of
New York.

One of our neighbors in the Old Colonie was Thurlow Weed, the Boss of
the Whig party in the Empire State, and the founder, proprietor and
editor of the _Albany Evening Journal_, one of the most influential
papers in the country. Father was on terms of near-intimacy with Mr.
Weed, and this brought him in touch with Horace Greeley. Father, though
never a politician, was interested in party affairs and in constant
communication with the Old Line Whigs of the Henry Clay following, and
I am under the impression that the consultations of the political firm
of Seward, Weed and Greeley were sometimes held in father’s library.
When he was editing the “Log Cabin” the party paper in the first
Harrison campaign, Mr. Greeley was often a guest at our house, and at
that period, he and father formed a warm friendship which continued
during the remainder of their lives.

Having referred to Mr. Weed as the Boss of the Whig party in New York
State, I think it due to the memory of an honorable man to state my
belief that he never made one dollar out of politics. He gave a great
deal of service and a great deal of money to the promotion of his
political ideas, but never received a penny in return. He was a Boss
indeed, directing party affairs with the strong hand of a Dictator, but
he sought no profit and gained none, not even the thanks of those he
served. So far from bettering his fortunes, his public activities
involved constant demands upon his private purse. Not only party
friends but party enemies called on Thurlow Weed for help when in
distress, knowing that his hands would be open and his lips closed.
Closed they were, but it was generally understood in the Old Colonie
that the many seedy and needy applicants coming to his door must have
made serious inroads on his income.

One noticeable case was that of a saloon-keeper, a Whig politician in a
small way, who was supposed to control the “canal vote,” that is the
vote of the floating population in the canal basin, among whom were
boatmen ready to cast their ballots either way for a price. Mr. Weed
did not approve of this man or of his methods, and the fellow went over
to the Locofocos, bag and baggage. He took with him an ugly grudge
against the Whig Boss and vented his spite in lies, slanders and
defamations of the foulest kind. For years he made all the trouble he
possibly could, but being a drinking man, he meanwhile drifted down
hill, deviously but without a stop. When he had reached the bottom, in
utter destitution, he came to Mr. Weed begging for aid—and he got it.
More than that, after his death his children were supported until they
could take care of themselves, and the costs, as we could not help
knowing, were paid by our Beaver Street neighbor.

A final memory of Mr. Weed lingers in my mind, to the discredit of
those who should have been his grateful friends. The last time I called
on him was when he was living in New York with his daughter, I think in
Broome Street. On greeting him I noted that he was much disturbed by
some annoyance which he could neither conceal nor throw off with his
old-time buoyancy of spirit.

His agitation was so evident and so unusual that I ventured to inquire
as to the trouble which so vexed his serene temper. In reply he took up
a copy of a prominent New York morning paper and pointed to a
sub-editorial in which he was referred to by name as “a veteran lagging
superfluous on the stage.”

That was the most unkindest cut of all. Mr. Weed was at that time
living in retirement, but he still contributed vigorous and timely
articles to the editorial columns of this same journal. He was
grievously hurt by the gratuitous affront to which he had been so
rudely subjected, but all he said was, “I may be superfluous, but no
one can truthfully say I ever was a laggard.”

I believe the management of the paper apologized privately for the
stupid insult, ascribing the sub-editorial to one of the juniors, and
expressing regret that it should have been inadvertently printed. All
the same, Thurlow Weed never wrote another editorial, the untoward
incident putting an end to the labor of a long and arduous journalistic
career.

Across the way from Mr. Weed’s residence in the Old Colonie was the Van
Antwerp house, bearing the date 1640 in iron figures at the peak of the
gable which fronted the street. It was built of yellow brick—or at
least the gable front was so built—and the Van Antwerp legend was that
these bricks were imported from Antwerp, the native town of their
family. The last descendant was Juferouw Cornelia Van Antwerp who kept
a little school in the basement of her dwelling, the family fortune
having dwindled until this home was about the only property left to the
Juferouw. In this school my sister Althea and I were taught the three
r’s and not much else. The ancient Dutch spinster was a lady,
well-bred, dignified and courteous, who held a high place in the elect
circle or Old Colonie society, and was not the less esteemed because of
her straitened circumstances. Her walk and conversation were no doubt
edifying, but the curriculum of her scholastic institute possibly left
something to be desired in the departments of higher education. She had
one available qualification for her position, however,—being an expert
in making and mending quill pens. She spent much of her time during
school hours in shaping these writing instruments, and I imagine she
eked out her slender income by supplying pens to the neighbors.

The public schools were, in those days, looked upon as public
charities, and these were not attended by children whose parents or
guardians could afford to pay for private instruction which, whether
better or worse, did not at all events, suggest poverty. So it came
about, that father, on returning from one of his journeys eastward,
brought home the idea of sending Althea and myself to school at Brook
Farm.




CHAPTER II.
FRIEND GREELEY


When Mr. Greeley first came to our house, I was not very favorably
impressed by his appearance. He was tall and strongly built with broad
shoulders somewhat bent forward, a smooth face, fair complexion and
very light hair worn rather long. He was near-sighted and, like other
near-sighted folk had a way of peering forward as he walked, and this
with his heavy lurching gait, gave him a very awkward, countrified
carriage. He remarked in my presence at a later time, “I learned to
walk in the furrows of a New Hampshire farm and the clogging clay has
stuck to my feet ever since.”

His voice was thin and high-pitched, a small voice for such a big man,
as we thought, and he had an abrupt manner of withdrawing attention
that was to us rather disconcerting until we got used to it. His
pockets were bulging with newspapers and memoranda, scrawled in the
curiously obscure handwriting which I subsequently found much
difficulty in learning to read, though it was plain enough when the
meaning of the strange hieroglyphics intended for letters was once
fully understood. He was pressed with business during his brief visits
but found time to make friends with the juveniles of the family and we
learned to welcome him with real pleasure. My mother noted that we made
him smile, and that went far in establishing intimacy. Horace Greeley’s
rare smile revealed beauty of character and that charity commended by
St. Paul as greater than faith or hope; a smile more nearly angelic
than we often see in this mundane environment.


[Illustration: Horace Greeley]

His peculiarities of dress have been, I think, much exaggerated by
common gossip. He wanted his clothes made big and easy, and he wore
them a long time and somewhat negligently, but that was because he had
other things to mind and not in the least because he affected
singularity. I was with him a good deal as a boy and as a young man and
I am sure he spoke truly when in response to some friendly advice
concerning these matters, he said “I buy good cloth, go to a good
tailor and pay a good price, and that is all I can do about it.”

The popular phrase about Greeley’s old white coat had some foundation
in fact, but not much. He did wear a light drab overcoat when I first
saw him, with the full pockets spreading out on each side. As it suited
him he wore it many years afterward, and when it was quite worn out he
had another one made just like it which he wore many years more. I
doubt if he ever had more than two of these famous garments, but it is
true that these two, always supposed to be the same old white coat,
were known all over the Northern part of the country. As late as the
first Grant presidential campaign, Elder Evans, inviting him to make an
address before the Shaker community at Harvard, Mass., asked him to
please bring “the old white coat, that our folk may know it is you, for
sure.”

It is possible there may have been some little feeling of resentment
against this sort of patronage expressed in the dragging on of the old
white coat with the sleeves awry and the collar turned under, but I am
sure that as a rule Mr. Greeley gave very little thought as to
wherewithal he would be clothed.

Horace Greeley never had half a chance to develop the finer qualities
of his nature—and he knew it. He was a tremendous worker and as an
aggressive editor, an ambitious politician and an ardent reformer,
driven like a steam engine, he could give little heed to the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune, but he was sensitive as a girl to rebuffs
bringing to mind what might have been. Among friends with whom he felt
at home and in really congenial company, he was a different being from
the hard hitting fighter and eccentric philosopher known to the public.
At our home he was with the children like a child, genial and
companionable as an elder brother. In the house of the Carey sisters,
where I saw him years later, he was happy and care-free. Phoebe and
Alice Carey, poets and essayists, had Sunday evening gatherings at
their home in New York, where the choice spirits of the literary world
held converse after the manner of their kind, as at the assemblies in
the Paris salons of the 18th century. In this company Mr. Greeley was
at his best, animated, witty and charmingly affable. He realized, only
too well, that his best was wasted in the strife which was his daily
portion and which ended in the disastrous defeat that cost him his
life. The flashes of aroused egotism that sometimes blazed out in
red-hot words, were only signs of impatience and regret that he had
been deprived of opportunity to cultivate the amenities and graces of
life and to gain control of the higher powers he consciously possessed.
Any one who will take the trouble to-day to read his later writings,
his tribute to old friends and his essays like that on “Growing Old
Gracefully,” will be led to know that Horace Greeley had the soul of a
poet.

Through acquaintance with Thurlow Weed my father came to know Mr.
Greeley and through Mr. Greeley he came to know Dr. George Ripley and
the circle of literary folk in Boston of which he was the center.
Boston was not at that time a literary city. If there was a seat of
literature in America, then, it was to be found in Philadelphia, there
being very little visible evidence of literary activity, in the
three-hilled town; no Old Corner Book Store, no publishing house like
Ticknor and Fields, no _Scarlet Letter_, no _Atlantic Monthly_ and no
_Evening Transcript_, subsequently one of the best newspapers from a
literary point of view this country ever had. There was, however, at
the period referred to, about 1840, a coterie of brilliant intellectual
people in Boston and Cambridge many of whom attained, later, some
degree of eminence in the literary world.

These were young men and women of fine culture, liberal in opinion and
animated by a new spirit of the times which was in this country first
manifested in their midst. At that period a wave of interest in what
was then known as social reform swept over France and Germany and
reached our shores in Massachusetts Bay, eventually extending all
through the north and northwest, conveying new social and political
ideas to thousands of intelligent Americans. These new ideas were
discussed at the meetings of the thinking young folk above referred to,
at which meetings they also held other high debates on matters
philosophic, poetic, educational, etc. They eventually established a
periodical as their organ called _The Dial_, a publication which
immediately attracted wide attention by the admirable literary style of
its articles as well as by their originality and commanding interest.
_The Dial_ had the effect of imparting greater cohesion to the company
of editors, contributors and others interested in its publication, and
these presently became known to the world as the Transcendentalists; a
word borrowed from Germany and rather too formidable for general use in
our busy country.

Whether they were overweighted by their ponderous title or whether they
created an artificial atmosphere too etherial for common mortals, the
first generation of Transcendentalists was also the last. They had no
successors and _The Dial_, as their organ, was short lived. It
undoubtedly exercised a considerable influence in its day; and
individual members of the long-named fraternity did much to mould the
thought of the American people in after years. Among these were Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, George William Curtis, Francis George
Shaw, translator of Eugene Sue and of George Sand, and father of
Colonel Robert Shaw, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, Dr. Howe and his
fiancee Julia Ward, Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight and perhaps a score
of other bright spirits. Occasional attendants at their gatherings and
contributors to _The Dial_ were Horace Greeley, William Page, afterward
President of The National Academy of Design, Thomas Wentworth Higginson
and my father, Charles Sears. Their acknowledged leader was the Rev.
George Ripley, the founder of Brook Farm.

I do not know anything more about this old time Transcendentalism than
I do about the Pragmatism of our day, and that is not much. I believe
the two schools of thought were alike in this, they both held that
modern civilization has gone sadly and badly astray in the pursuit of
wealth. Not money but the love of money is, now as ever, the root of
all evil. The first work of the makers of America was necessarily the
creation of property, the accumulation of the means of life, but we
have pushed this pursuit too far, have gone money mad not knowing when
we should stop trying to get rich and give our time and attention to
higher things.

There is another matter to be noted as of some significance namely that
leading Transcendentalists were, and leading Pragmatists now are,
scholars and university men. It is true America was not turning out
university men in the ’40’s and it might perhaps better be said that
the Transcendentalists were college men, but as several of them were
educated in Germany the connotation may be allowed to stand. It was
said of these learned students that at their meetings they read Dante
in the original Italian, Hegel in the original German, Swedenborg in
the original Latin, which language the Swedish seer always used,
Charles Fourier in the original French, and perhaps the hardest task of
all, Margaret Fuller in the original English. Margaret was an honored
member of the illustrious company and was held in high esteem; but her
writings are mighty hard reading. I can quite understand James Russell
Lowell’s judgment in his “Fable For Critics” where he condemns a
certain literary offender to severe punishment, sentencing him to 30
days at hard labor, reading the works of Margaret Fuller.

It was, as above said, after one of his visits to Boston that my father
came home with the suggestion of sending Althea and myself to school at
Brook Farm. The idea met with a good deal of opposition from the Dutch
side of the house, which was my side for all I was worth, but I suppose
father opined that it was time some of the provincialism of the Old
Colonie should be rubbed off. Through his acquaintance with Thurlow
Weed he came to know Mr. Greeley and through Mr. Greeley was introduced
to Dr. Ripley and the Transcendentalists, gaining, by the way, broader
views and a wider range of ideas than those which had prevailed in
Beaver Street for two hundred years. Such, I take it was the sequence
of events, not as noted by a little boy but as partly imagined and
partly reasoned out at a later time. Partly imagined, too, is the
presumption that my father was attracted by the philosophic ideals
presented by his Boston friends. A tired business man might well be
impressed by the Transcendental teaching that our civilization has gone
wrong in forcing all human energy into the one pursuit, that of getting
riches. They held that while hard work rarely harms any one, the
monotonous grind in the money making mills results in arrested
development. Work as hard as you please, spend all the energy, all the
talent, all the skill you have but not in seeking wealth. That is not
worth while, and it prevents the doing of what is worth while. Do your
best in the world; give all you can, but be sure to get a fair return,
not in money but in better things. Seek culture, seek knowledge, seek
character, seek friendship, good will, good health, good conscience,
and the peace that passeth understanding shall be added unto you. Be
content with a small measure of this world’s wealth and do not crave
costly luxuries to make a show withal. To this end, go out into the
country; raise what you need as far as possible with your own hands,
and enough more to exchange for such things as you cannot produce.
Abandon the world, the flesh and the Devil and go back to the soil and
find the Garden of Eden.

My father accepted these teachings in good faith and gave in his
testimony with those who in _The Dial_ and through other agencies were
propagating the new philosophy. His engagements with others were such
that he could not break away at the time to put these novel ideas to
the test of actual experiment but no doubt he thought it wise and well
to give his children an early initiation into the new life that was to
regenerate the world.

Dr. Ripley was, as said, the leader of the Transcendental coterie and
he had all the vitalizing enthusiasm that a leader must necessarily
possess. He was a solidly built man of medium height with brown hair
and beard and the kindest eyes in the world. He was a Unitarian
clergyman, a scholar learned in all the learning of the Egyptians and
all the other learned peoples of every age and clime, and a gentleman
of the most engagingly courteous address; his good manners rested on
bed rock foundations, too, and could not be corrupted by evil
communications. I saw him more than once in straits harsh enough to try
the patience of a saint, and noted with surprised admiration that his
perfect poise was not in the least disturbed.

It was Dr. Ripley who, having the courage of his convictions, bravely
suggested putting in practice the principles he and his Transcendental
friends advocated in theory. “We talk well,” he said, in effect, “why
not try to do the thing which we say?” And he did. With a few of these
friends, like-minded, he went out to West Roxbury; six miles from
Boston, and bought a farm of 200 acres. Being unusually bright folk,
remarkably intelligent, highly educated and, as may be said,
brilliantly enlightened, they succeeded, almost beyond belief, in
making a woefully bad bargain. I do not know how much they paid for the
land but whatever the price it was too high. The property was
picturesque to look at but its best herbage was sheep-sorrel. Next the
brook, which gave the name, Brook Farm, there was a fair bit of meadow,
with a rounded hill called the Knoll rising sharply on the north. The
land rolled unevenly on, one-eighth of a mile or so, to higher ground
and then fell off again to a level plateau covered with pine woods,
beyond which were two or three fields of plow-land. The soil was thin,
sandy where it was not rocky, and rocky where it was not sandy. It was
a poor place, indeed, and had been poorly farmed until it was as lean
as Pharaoh’s second herd of kine. It speaks well for these
unsophisticated philosophers that in four years they made this desert
to rejoice and blossom as the rose; cultivating the finest market
gardens and flower-gardens in Roxbury, planting orchards and vineyards,
and growing pasturage for a profitable dairy.

If the amateur farmers were dismayed on finding what a hard row they
had to hoe on this impoverished estate, they never complained, so far
as I have heard, but resolutely set about the work they had to do. They
came out to try a certain social experiment; an experiment in living a
higher kind of life than that of their day and generation, resting on
the faith that such a life can be lived here and now as well as
heretofore in the legendary “Golden Age” of the past, or as hereafter
in the “good time coming” of the future. The one purpose they
entertained was to dwell together in unity “near to the heart of
nature,” a phrase attributed to Margaret Fuller. All other
considerations, whether of hardship, or bad beginnings or
disappointments were but secondary if they could succeed in
demonstrating the practicability of their high ideals.

Perhaps it is not a matter of much interest to the present generation
but to us it has always seemed that these Brook Farmers deserve to be
favorably remembered. They were not martyrs, being, on the contrary, an
unusually joyous and happy company, but, all the same, they gave the
best of their lives to the service of humanity. They honestly and
earnestly believed they could demonstrate the practicability of their
theories, to the advantage of their fellow-beings, and they faithfully
tried to accomplish that purpose. If the Pilgrims of Plymouth deserve
honor for unselfish devotion to religious reform, why should not the
Brook Farm pioneers of social reform receive correspondingly suitable
recognition. It is true they did not immediately attain the ends they
sought but neither did the Pilgrims; and the end is not yet.

It should be said that not all the Transcendentalists joined Doctor
Ripley in his Utopian undertaking. Ralph Waldo Emerson for example was
not of our company. Indeed, he was not of any company. An inspiring
preacher he gained early fame as a pulpit orator in the First Unitarian
Church of Cambridge, Mass., but even the liberal communion of that free
congregation was too close for his independent spirit, and he abandoned
a career of brilliant promise in the ministry, as he said, “for his
soul’s peace.” _Sui generis_, to be himself he must stand alone, and
alone he stood during the remainder of his life.

A stanza of his poem, “The Problem” doubtless expresses something of
his sentiments with regard to religious affiliation:

     “I like a church, I like a cowl,
     I love a prophet of the soul,
     And on my heart monastic aisles
     Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles,
     Yet not for all his faith can see
     Would I that cowled churchman be.”


Of all the visitors coming to Brook Farm, I think Emerson was the most
welcome. He was beloved by everyone from Dr. Ripley, dear friend and
brother clergyman, to Abby Morton’s little ones. The messages of cheer
and the words of wisdom he brought were received and treasured with
intelligent appreciation. I have heard it said that Emerson was at his
best when talking in monologue of an evening at the Hive, or in more
formal discourse in the grove on Sunday. He was companionable and
entered into the life of the place with evident enjoyment—happy but not
jovial. He smiled readily and most charmingly, but never laughed. As a
young man his personality was most attractive, serene loving-kindness
illumining his comely countenance! My mother, also a serene spirit,
thought his face the most beautiful she ever saw; and she was sure that
laughter would be unseemly and disturbing.


[Illustration: Ralph Waldo Emerson]

Emerson liked to be with us at times, but never to be one of us. In the
beginning Dr. Ripley wrote him a cordial invitation to join the
association, the only invitation of the kind he ever gave, I believe.
The invitation was declined in a note quoted by Rev. O. B. Frothingham
in his admirable biography of Dr. Ripley, as follows:

“It is quite time that I made an answer to your proposition that I
should venture into your new community. The design appears to me noble
and generous, proceeding as I plainly see from nothing covert or
selfish or ambitious but from a manly heart and mind. So it makes all
men its friends and debtors. A matter to be entertained in a friendly
spirit and examined as to what it has for us.

“I have decided not to join it, yet very slowly and I may almost say,
with penitence. I am greatly relieved by learning that your coadjutors
are now so many that you will no longer attach that importance to the
defection of individuals which you hinted in your letter to me or
others might possess—I mean the painful power of defeating the plan.”




CHAPTER III.
A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND


Racial prejudice was cherished as a virtue in the Old Colonie and the
real, solid Dutch families found it anything but creditable that Van
Der Zee children—we had the honor of being regarded as Van Der Zees in
Beaver street—should be sent to an English school in far off Boston
town. Massachusetts was, to them, an English colony, and the people
there were English, that is to say, foreigners, strangers, and not to
be trusted. However, when it was learned that we were actually going,
and mother set about making the elaborate preparations considered
necessary for so formidable an undertaking, kind friends came in
bringing gifts deemed suitable for the occasion, knitted mittens and
mufflers, pies and cakes, apples and cider, and choice stores of the
cellar and pantry enough to provision a ship for a long cruise. My
nearest boy friend, Gratz Van Rensselaer, gave me his knife. How close
were our relations may be understood from the fact that we had a
private signal, a peculiar whistle of our own which we used to call
each other, as boys are wont to do when on terms of exclusive intimacy.
To quote Mr. Peggotty, “A man can’t say fairer nor that, now, can he?”

When Gratz went down into his pockets and handed me that knife in
solemn silence, I fully realized that he was making a sacrifice on the
altar of friendship. Any critic of this writing will be justified in
objecting that I did not probably formulate the idea in just these
terms, but this is about the size of it, all the same.

Whether my schoolmate ever afterward used our call, I do not know, as
our parting was a finality, but for my part, I took it with me to Brook
Farm where my new mates adopted it forthwith. Later, the elders took it
up, and eventually it became widely known over the face of the earth as
“the Brook Farm call.” It went to California with a young married
couple in the early fifties; to China with one of our boys who became
the Captain of a Pacific steamer; to Spain and to Russia with another
in the United States diplomatic service; to Italy with two girls whose
father was an artist; to the Philippines with students returning to
their home in Manila, and to all quarters where Brook Farmers found
their way, as they seem always to have remembered it.

A peculiarity which may have helped keep it in mind was that it
consisted of two parts, the summons, and the response; the first part
differing slightly from the second, to distinguish friend answering
friend from the stranger merely imitating sounds accidentally or
incidentally heard. Just what the difference was may be learned from
the notation here given.

Another peculiarity of the call was that it had the quality of taking
character from the person uttering it. For example, Annie Page was the
girl I most devotedly admired, and when “she gaed me her answer true”
in response to my signal, her musical little trill sounded to me like
the voice of the thrush that sang down in the pine woods. Per contra,
there was Frank Barlow, whom we used to call “Crazy Barlow” because of
his headlong rush at whatever object he had in view, and he could make
the call shrill and thrill like a fife.


[Illustration: The Brook Farm Call]

I met Frank one morning in the later days of the Civil War when he was
striding along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington at his usual breakneck
pace. He was Major General Barlow, then, one of the great generals of
the Union Army, but he was, first, last and always, a Brook Farmer, so
I signaled to him with the same old call. He came to an abrupt halt,
answered my greeting and dashed across the Avenue with both hands
extended. Neither of us had more than a short allowance of time, but we
could do no less than adjourn to a convenient resort for a good hearty
talk about the old days in West Roxbury.

Other experiences with the call have come to me since then but none
that I remember with more pleasure. To-day there are few or none to
answer, no matter how earnestly I might sound the old appeal. As may be
seen above, the little succession of notes is very simple, but they
convey a world meaning to my old ear.

If two little Dutch boys in the Old Colonie composed this memorable
opus they surely did better than they knew, but my notion is they must
have heard something like it and repeated the sounds without being
aware that they were merely memories, not original inventions. The
boatmen on the Erie Canal announced their entry into the Albany basin
by blowing a horn, commonly a tin horn, harsh and discordant. The
passenger packets, however, having to “come into port grandly” sounded
a bugle flourish, sometimes really melodious. It may have been these
bugle notes, impressing their sweet succession on sub-conscious young
minds, that afforded the first suggestion of the Brook Farm call.

As my readers may note with more or less patience, it takes time for
New Netherland folk to get started on a long journey. Ours was a long
journey, in truth, as it required two days and a night to accomplish
it. The express schedule on the Boston and Albany Railroad is four
hours between the two cities; but there was no express travel in the
forties except by passenger packets on the Erie Canal, above referred
to. These fast flyers raced along at the top speed of four miles an
hour making stops only at the locks or bridges or to change horses or
to take someone on board or to let someone step ashore. If my mother’s
visits to her relatives extended as far as Schenectady, she made the
journey in one of these Swiftsure liners, perhaps the _Swallow_, or the
_Gleam_ or the _Alida_, usually accompanied by one or two of us
children; and a very pleasant journey it was to be sure in fair
weather. To glide smoothly along through the country on the deck of a
canal boat is a method of locomotion affording opportunities to view
the landscape o’er with much comfort and constant though not too rapid
changes of entertainment. Necessarily running as near the shore as
possible, a slight shift of the tiller by an obliging helmsman would
enable a small boy to effect a landing and take a quick look into the
canal blacksmith shop, or to walk a stretch with the youth driving the
horses, and then re-embark without attracting too much attention. In
this leisurely progress through towns and villages and farming
neighborhoods, something like a real acquaintance could be made with
persons and with places not otherwise to be formed except perhaps on a
tour afoot. Lasting friendships and even romances have resulted, before
now, from the exchange of greetings and gossip between
packet-passengers and people on the canal bank waiting for papers,
packages, or messages, or merely interested in seeing the Swiftsure
boat go by.

The last of the Swiftsure boats went by, long, long ago, and the later
generations of New Netherlander know not the joys of journeying on the
canal. Fortunately in the old Netherlands the water-highways are still
ways for travel as well as for traffic. The easygoing people of the Low
Countries, never in a hurry, are content to move at a moderate pace,
without fretting about speed, taking their comfort as they go. The
American, in their country, can find a diversion well worth considering
by setting aside a few days from the usual routine, and entering the
life of these good folk, far enough to take a trip or two in a
treckschuyt on the canals that form such an important factor of their
transportation system. Landing at Antwerp, for example, one could not
do better than to take a treckschuyt excursion at once, before the
bloom of anticipation has been rubbed off by the friction of much
sight-seeing. Antwerp is in Belgium, to be sure, but it is one of the
best of fair ports for arrival at the end of a Transatlantic voyage,
and from its crowded port a passage can be taken to almost any point in
the Netherlands, or, for that matter, in the four quarters of the
globe. From here, take a treckschuyt ride to Bruges, and another to
Ghent and anywhere else, as fancy dictates. Or suppose a stop is made
at The Hague—everyone goes to The Hague—short trips can be made to
Delft, Rotterdam and Dordricht, right in the middle of Holland, or, in
the other direction, to Leyden and on up to Amsterdam. However, it is
needless to write out an itinerary, as there are guide books enough
already. All places are interesting and all are accessible. The one
thing to be thought of is the going from one place to another by
treckschuyt. To have a good time, the traveler must be capable of
adjusting himself to his environment. He must put up with the ways of
the people as he finds them and not expect them to adjust themselves to
his ways, after the manner of the Englishman at the Pyramids, who
insisted that his Arabs should give him beef-sandwiches and Bass for
lunch. The Dutch are courteous and hospitable, but they have their own
notions, and by these they abide as against anything and everything
foreign and strange. If the American traveler can make a treckschuyt
voyage in the right spirit, he can have a pleasurable and valuable
experience, and he will be thankful for the suggestion here given.

It was a cold day, literally, and, for me, a cold day, figuratively,
when we finally set forth on our journey to Boston town. We made the
passage of the Hudson by Van Alstyne’s Ferry, landing at Bath, and
finding our way, somehow or other, to Greenbush, the terminus of the
railroad. The friends gathered to see us off, watched on the bank with
anxiety until we reached Bath in safety as there was ice running in the
river. The ice was about as thick as paper, but it was enough to awaken
new fears in the maternal heart as to the perils of the dreaded
journey.

Van Alstyne’s Ferry consisted of a scow, propelled by horsepower, and
equipped with a hinged platform at each end which, when let down to
touch the shelving shore, afforded the means of ingress and egress. It
was a good big scow, big enough, indeed, to carry two teams at once if
due care was taken in getting on and off over the swinging platform. It
was steered by a great oar in the competent hands of Myndert Van
Alstyne who navigated the craft, while his brother Wynant collected the
fares and kept the machinery in motion with the aid of a hickory gad.

We arrived at Springfield toward evening and took rooms for the night
at the Massasoit House. It was here we found the first evidences of
being strangers in a strange land, which my Dutch relatives predicted
would of necessity prove annoying. We were hungry, and the hotel supper
was anything but satisfying. As everyone knows, the New Netherlanders
are hearty good trencher-folk. At our house, we always had a full
table, and at Grandpa Van Der Zee’s there had to be more on the board
than could possibly be consumed or there was not enough to please the
Baas. At the Massasoit, there was a fair show in the dining-room, but
on trial the things provided were not acceptable. The milk was thin,
and the butter and eggs not at all like those at home, fresh from the
farm. This, however, could be understood and allowed for. The cows and
the hens were English and, therefore, naturally inferior to ours, so
that couldn’t be helped. What could not be condoned and what I
indignantly resented was the barefaced fraud practiced on unwary
travelers in the matter of the “piece de resistance,” the main feature
of the meal as it appeared to me. This was a good sized cake or
possibly plum pudding, piled up in round slices on a large salver in
the middle of the table. Counting on this delectable looking, rich
brown confection to make up for the shortcomings of the supper, I
secured a generous section, and eagerly took a boy’s big bite.
Consternation and dismay were at once realized for all the words could
mean! The cake-pudding did not turn to ashes in my mouth—it was already
ashes—ashes, sawdust and molasses. Althea, seeing my disappointment and
disgust, declined partaking of the delicacy, but father managed to eat
some of it, explaining that it was Boston brown bread.




CHAPTER IV.
A BAD BEGINNING


Mr. Jonas Gerrish, or familiarly, just plain Gerrish, was the United
States Mail, the Express, the Freight Line and the rapid transit system
for Brook Farm. He made two trips daily between the Hive and Scollay’s
Square, covering the distance, six miles, in about an hour and a half,
going out of his way to accommodate his patrons, as occasion required.
We found Gerrish waiting at the depot when we arrived in Boston,
half-an-hour late. He was a little impatient, as he said there was snow
coming and he feared delay in getting back to the city. Gerrish was apt
to be impatient, but that was all on the surface as he was really very
kind-hearted and obliging. The snow began to fall before we were beyond
the streets, and we reached our destination in the midst of a driving
storm.

Father decided to return at once with Gerrish, having business in
Boston which might go amiss if he should be storm-stayed in West
Roxbury. His apprehensions were only too well founded, the Brook Farm
community being snowbound in the Hive during the next three days. He
hastily left us in charge of good Mrs. Rykeman, the house-mother at the
Hive, promising to come out on Saturday for the week-end at the
Farm—though I don’t know, come to think of it, that the weekend of our
present day outings was known to us at that period.

Mrs. Rykeman had two forlorn, cold and tired children on her hands, one
of whom at most was a very miserable youngster, indeed, far from mother
and home and everything that makes life worth living. Our hostess took
us to her own room and made us comfortable as she could, and,
presently, as the bell rang for supper, conducted us to the
dining-room. This was a long, bare room, containing ten or twelve
square tables, also bare, save for the napkin, knife and spoon and bowl
at each place. As we entered at one end of the room, a group of girls
came in at the other end bringing pitchers of milk and piles of Boston
brown bread. There was also Graham bread or, as we now call it,
whole-wheat bread, and apple-sauce, but the meal consisted mainly of
brown bread and milk. I then and there learned that the foreign milk
was poor and thin because it was skimmed. The idea of putting skimmed
milk on the table was unknown in the Old Colonie.


[Illustration: “The Hive”]

I could not or would not touch the abominable brown bread, and, while
waiting for the girls to serve the eggs or chops or whatever there was
for supper, passed the time in trying to make out the meaning of the
chatter and laughter that filled the room with merriment. There seemed
to be a gleam of sense discoverable now and then, but, on the whole, it
was impossible to catch the significance of the rapid-fire talk
volleying from table to table. Indeed, it was always difficult for a
stranger to swing into the current of general conversation at Brook
Farm. The bright young enthusiasts there were all of one mind, in a
way; in close sympathy and quick to understand each other. A word, a
look, a gesture expressed a thought. An allusion, a memory, an apt
quotation suggested an idea which was clearly apprehended by ready
listeners; and a flash of wit was instantly followed by a peal of
mirth, echoed to the limit.

It goes without saying that these reflections were not in my young
noddle at the moment, but being of later date, are the findings of
longer observation. I must have been in a sort of maze, wondering at
the fun going on which I could see and hear but could not comprehend,
and wondering too when supper was coming. I was about to ask Mrs.
Rykeman how long we would have to wait, when, whiz! the whole business
of the meal was over and done with. Everybody sprang up at once, and
away they all flew like a flock of birds, leaving an astonished little
boy looking for something to eat.

Althea took flight with the others, presently returning to look after
her forlorn brother, but, finding I had been taken to the kitchen for
something that might at least alleviate the pangs of hunger, she
rejoined the girls in the parlor, where there was already a dance under
way. Althea was a bright-spirited girl, vivacious, alert, appreciative
and companionable. She forthwith took her place in the Brook Farm
community with the best grace. She readily made friends with Abby Ford
and her sister, with Annie and Mary Page, with the Barlow brothers and
with the Spanish students of about her own age. Of these latter, Ramon
Cita or Little Raymond became subsequently her particular cavalier.
Ramon was the youngest and smallest of the Spaniards, besides being the
best looking according to our standards, and a very charming little
gentleman he was, too. There were eight of these boys and young men,
and they were all courteous and polite to a degree that we American
youngsters could admire, but to which we could hardly attain. They must
have been members of distinguished families, as they more than once
received visits from high officials of the Spanish legation in
Washington.

It may as well be said here that these students were sent from Manila
to prepare for Harvard in Dr. Ripley’s school in Boston; a school which
was of the first repute in the early forties. The Doctor transferred it
with several of the teachers to West Roxbury, where it became the
nucleus of the Brook Farm school. The Ford girls, with their aunt, Miss
Russell, the Barlow boys and their mother, and the Manila youths were,
I believe, among those migrating from the Boston school.

We all liked the young Spaniards very much, and I have ever since liked
the people of their nationality I have met at home and abroad. They can
teach us good manners every day in the week; but they have one
peculiarity that must strike the average American as certainly rather
strange. This is their common and familiar use of words and names which
we regard as sacred and hardly to be spoken outside of the
meeting-house. As an example, it may be allowable, at this late day to
mention without giving family names, that one of our students was
baptized Jesus Mary, and another by the same rite was designated Joseph
Holy Spirit.

Before bedtime the snowstorm had risen to the height of a terrific
tempest, the heaviest and hardest of the winter, and what the New
England winter can do when it tries can only be known by experience, as
no description can convey any adequate idea of the fierce blasts, the
drive of hard-frozen snow and the terrible cold forced straight through
clothes and flesh and bones by the piercing spears and pounding hammers
of the Northeast gale fiends. Three days and three nights the raiding
powers of the arctics raged about us and blockaded all but the hardiest
and strongest of us in the close quarters of the Hive. To venture out
of the house was to risk life and limb. No one was allowed to run such
risks alone, as, in case of a fall, the chances would be against
getting up again without help, but parties of twos and threes of the
young men went to the barns to look after the cattle or up to the
Eyrie, the Cottage and Pilgrim Hall to see that all was right and to
bring down a sled-load of bedding for the shut-ins. In their services,
the vegetarians matched themselves against the “cannibals” as they
disdainfully called those who were still in bonds to the flesh-pots of
Egypt, but I do not believe there was beef enough eaten on the place to
warrant any comparisons being made, and, at any rate, they all came out
alike, pretty much exhausted.

Next morning I awoke on a sofa in the upper hall, where I had stretched
out, along toward midnight, for a moment’s rest. Althea had carefully
taken off my shoes, and had covered me over with cloaks and shawls,
without my knowing it. The swarm in the Hive had exemplified the poet’s
idea of the tumultuous privacy of storm fairly well as to the tumult,
but as to the privacy, that was what could be had in a house
overcrowded with excited young folk. Frolic and fun were to the fore,
and everybody bore the troubles of that tempestuous evening with high
good humor; one weary, cross and fretful little chap being left out of
the account. Left out he was, for sure. Always at Brook Farm, anyone
not strictly in it, to use a phrase of later date, was absolutely out
of it. One had to be aboard the train or find himself standing alone on
the platform.

I was in better case after what had to serve as a morning toilet, as
Mrs. Rykeman had promised to make up for a scanty supper by a treat of
good hot brewis. Brewis was a new word and I was more than ready to
test the merits of the unknown aliment, as, in my experience, anything
commended as good to eat, was sure to prove palatable. The dining-room
was occupied as a shake-down dormitory for women and girls, and
breakfast was taken standing in the parlor or hall or anywhere places
could be found outside of the kitchen where work was going on. When my
bowl was handed me it was filled with the everlasting brown bread
boiled in milk. That was brewis. I was just mad!

Wednesday and Thursday of that first week at Brook Farm were sad days
indeed. I made a bad beginning! Shut up indoors by the most violent
tempest of the year, I sulked in corners, alone in a crowd, the
loneliest kind of solitude. The teachers did their best to keep classes
going in the bedrooms, but, in the irregularity of the sessions, I was
allowed to be absent without remark. Althea and some others tried to
draw me into the continuous picnic performance going on all over the
house only to learn there was nothing doing in brother’s retreat. At
meal time the exasperating brown bread was invariably offered for my
delectation, and that I regarded as a personal affront. Resorting to
alliteration’s artful aid, it may be said I seemed bound to be bothered
by Boston brown bread. I brooded morning, noon and night over the one
idea that when my father came, I would beseech him to take me back
home.

It appeared, later, that I was not being altogether neglected by the
authorities during this trying period, as they had kept their eyes on
the new boy and were seriously considering this same idea, thinking it
would perhaps be better to advise his father to take him away. The dour
youker was plainly enough so unhappily out of place that they were
inclined not to try to keep him. Truly, a bad beginning!

This was not a decision adopted to meet the special case in hand, but
rather an unwritten rule of the community. Brook Farm was a solidarity,
a company united to put in practice certain principles and to
accomplish certain results, and only those were wanted who could enter
into the spirit of the movement and aid in carrying on the great work.
Those who did not help, hindered, and to hinder the task of reforming
society could not be permitted. As with the community, so also with the
school. The school was an independent organization, but it was likewise
an experimental organization, being, practically, a first attempt to
inaugurate industrial education, and only pupils suited for such an
education were wanted. It was not a place for the feeble-minded, the
deficient or the intractable, but for bright children capable of
responding to instruction directed to certain ends. The teachers,
earnestly devoted to these selected courses of instruction, could not
afford to give time and attention to incompetents.

These matters are worth mentioning for the reason that Brook Farm in
general and Dr. Ripley in particular have been censured for refusing to
accept members of the community and pupils of the school not suited to
the forwarding of undertakings held as almost sacred. This
exclusiveness was neither hard-hearted nor uncharitable, but was simply
necessary under the circumstances. To charge Brook Farm with being
heathenish and unchristian on this account, as certain Puritan critics
have done, is as unjust as it would be to blame Luther Burbank for
discarding a thousand plants to cultivate the one growth giving promise
of answering his purpose. For any experiment the careful selection of
material is not only proper but indispensable.

On Friday the storm abated and things began to mend all around as the
sides cleared. In the afternoon Dr. Ripley and Charles Hosmer made
their way home from Boston, hailed with rejoicings by everyone except
Master Grumpus, who should have been more than thankful for their
timely arrival, had he only known it. Saturday morning regular lessons
were resumed in the classroom, but I held aloof in out-of-the-way
coverts; one hiding place being the cow-stable. Here Charles Hosmer
happened to find me, just incidentally, as it seemed, but really by
kindly design no doubt, and gave me a hearty greeting which I couldn’t
be so churlish as not to return.

“Are you the boy who came from Albany?” he asked.

“From the Old Colonie, in Albany,” I replied.

“I suppose,” he continued, “you have not yet been assigned to your
classes?”

I accepted this account of what was in fact absence without leave, and
he then suggested that if I had nothing else on hand I might help him
in making a toboggan-slide. Never having heard of such a thing I
accepted the invitation. Securing a couple of shovels we cleared a path
to the knoll; and, on the way, Mr. Hosmer explained that Angus Cameron,
another new pupil, hailing from Canada, had brought to the school a
toboggan, a kind of sled, and we were to make a smooth path or slide
for it, so the boys and girls could try it in the afternoon when there
were no lessons.

We went to work with a will, spanking the snow down with the shovels,
leveling uneven places and forming a clear, hard track from the top of
the Knoll to the brook. On the edge of the bank we piled up an inclined
plane, wetting down the snow and building a mound perhaps five feet
high. From this elevation, Mr. Hosmer stated, the toboggan, flying down
the slide, would shoot upward and forward and land on the far side of
the brook. That seemed to me a very desirable thing to do, and, while I
finished up the shovel-work, my companion went back to the Hive and
brought out the toboggan.

This conveniency, well enough known to-day, was new to us, and we did
not quite know how to manage it. However, we got onto the thing
somehow, and away we went down the slide. The slide was all right and
the inclined plane was all right, so we made the descent and the ascent
all right, soaring over the brook like a bird, but the landing on the
far side was all wrong. We hit the snowbank like a battering ram, the
snow piling up in front of us as hard as stone; the shock was terrific!
Mr. Hosmer got the worst of it as he catapulted into the drift, while I
alighted in a heap on his shoulders. He scrambled out of the drift on
all fours, concerned only with learning whether I was badly hurt. On my
assurance that unless his back and legs and arms were broken, there was
no damage done, he straightened up and declared he was unhurt but
dreadfully humiliated. “How could a man be such a condemned idiot as to
plunge head-first against a barricade like that?” This was the question
suggested to his mind, only he did not say “condemned idiot” exactly,
but he apologized for the emphatic words he did use, and as they do not
look well in print, they need not be repeated.

Despite his bluff I saw he was in pain and wanted him to return to the
Hive, but he insisted on finishing our job. Under his direction I
wallowed through the snowdrift, back and forth, trampling down a
passage, and then pressed the snow hard and flat, using the toboggan
like a plank. Meanwhile Mr. Hosmer bad turned very white and now
dropped onto the toboggan, limp and sick. The shock had upset his
digestion. How to get him home? Borrowing rails from the roadside fence
I laid them across the streak of open water in the middle of the brook,
piled snow over them, and dragged my patient across on the toboggan. I
attempted to haul him up the Knoll, but he protested, asserting that he
was much better and fully able to walk. He managed to crawl up the hill
and left me with directions to find Angus Cameron and join him in
taking charge of the slide in the afternoon.

After making half-a-dozen or more flying leaps over the brook on the
new conveyance, with as many jolts and tumbles in the snow, I managed
to get the hang of the thing, and could steer it over the course with
delightful ease, suggesting the flight of a bird.




CHAPTER V.
A GOOD ENDING


Saturday’s dinner dispelled all fears of starvation from Brook Farm’s
meager fare, the table being abundantly supplied with boiled beef,
vegetables, Graham bread and good, sweet butter like home, and, best of
all, baked Indian pudding, a real luxury. Mr. Hosmer did not appear,
being confined to his room in the cottage. Learning that Dr. Ripley
intended calling there, I asked leave to go with him, and was told to
be in the library, which was also the President’s office, at four
o’clock.

Not being accustomed to Brook Farm’s quick changes, my little talk with
Dr. Ripley made me a few minutes late at the Knoll, where I found
two-score or so of children and half as many grown-ups engaged in a
snowball scrimmage. Inquiring for Angus, I turned over the toboggan to
him for the first ride. He asked if the slide was all right, if I had
made the jump over the brook, and if Mr. Hosmer was badly hurt. As he
was a little backward about coming forward, so to speak, I took the
initiative, inviting any girl to join me who had courage enough to face
the music. Urged by my sister Althea, Annie Page took the offered seat,
and down the slide we plunged like a shot, all the company watching our
venture with intense interest and not a little anxiety. The flight took
the breath away, but we sailed over the brook and out to the thin snow
on the meadow in one grand swoop, without a bump or a break on the way.
Annie was delighted and thanked me, over and over for giving her such a
surprising pleasure.

Under the circumstances I thought Althea might be the next girl to make
the trip, and, on the way up the hill, I gave the Old Colonie call,
which she recognized and answered. Annie noticed the whistle and the
reply, and asked what it meant, and when I explained the signal, she
said, “I would like to learn that.” I immediately repeated it until she
caught the notes, and presently the strain was echoed all over the
Knoll, and from that moment it became the call of the school. From that
moment, too, Annie Page became the one girl of the place for me. She
held that position in my regard until three years later, when she and
her sister went to live with their parents in Italy. She was a year and
a month and a day younger than myself, but was far my senior in the
school. That was an advantage to me, as it had the effect of driving me
ahead in my studies in order to reach her classes. We were together a
good deal out of school hours, taking the same work to do, when that
was practicable, as feeding the rabbits in the warren back of the
Eyrie, and cultivating the herb-garden where we raised mint, anise and
cummin, sage, marjoram and saffron for the Boston market.

One other incident occurred on the Knoll perhaps worth recording, as it
gave me a name. Annie insisted on helping me pull the toboggan up the
slide, and, on the way, she remarked, “I did not know boys liked
perfumery.”

“That,” said I, “is from the cedar chest our clothes are packed in.”

Just as we reached the group at the top of the hill she answered, “Oh,
cedar! So it is.”

As she spoke, a little toddlekins, three or four years old, came
running to me, exclaiming, “Cedar, can’t I ride on the ’bog-gan?”

That settled it! My Brook Farm name was thenceforth Cedar, and would be
Cedar, still, were there any of my companions left to remember it. I
never had any other nickname, save that of late years some dear and
intimate friends have made syllables of my initials and called me Jay
Vee.

At four o’clock my sister and I trudged up to pay our call at the
Eyrie. This was a square house of the surburban villa type,
two-and-a-half stories high, and the handsomest building on the place,
though plain, enough, as compared with villas in the neighborhood
to-day. Doctor and Mrs. Ripley received us very kindly and gave us a
most cordial welcome to Brook Farm. Mrs. Ripley, born Sophia Dana, was
a slender, graceful lady, belonging to what Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes
calls the Brahmin class of Boston; charming in manner, animated and
blithe, but profoundly serious in her religious devotion to what she
regarded as the true Christian life. She had, informally, the general
charge of the girls in the school, and she at once made Althea feel at
home under her motherly care.

Dr. Ripley gained my confidence by claiming old acquaintance, recalling
a former meeting that I had quite forgotten. Several years previous,
when I was a very small boy indeed, my father had taken me with him on
a flying trip from New York to Boston, deciding to do so, I suppose
rather than to leave mother in a strange city with two children on her
hands. During that brief visit Dr. Ripley had taken father to call on
an illustrious artist, and he now recalled the circumstances to my
mind. With his prompting I could remember riding in a carriage; seeing
a tall silvery old gentleman wearing a black velvet robe lined with
red, and tasting white grapes for the first time; but I could not think
of the silvery gentleman’s name.

“Well,” said my mentor, “perhaps you will be glad sometime to know that
the gentleman you saw was Washington Alston.”

Leaving Althea with Mrs. Ripley, we presently went over to the cottage,
a small house near the Eyrie, occupied by Miss Russell and her two
nieces; Mr. Dana, Mr. Hosmer and Mr. Hecker, finding the latter in Mr.
Hosmer’s room.

Isaac Thomas Hecker was a religious enthusiast who came to Brook Farm
for the same reason that Emerson left the Unitarian Church, namely, for
his soul’s peace. He belonged to a well-to-do family in New York,
engaged in the manufacture of flour specialties, but the restraints and
the questionable practices of business were irksome to him, and he
eagerly sought a home among the congenial spirits who were trying to
live a higher life on their sterile little property in West Roxbury.
Being one of the thoroughgoing kind, he had learned all the uses of
flour from beginning to end, and this knowledge he gladly made
available as baker-general for the Brook Farm community. He was a
faithful and competent baker for several months; usually happy and
cheerfully interested in all that was going on, but occasionally taking
a day off for fasting and prayer. Early in the spring, Annie Page and I
were hunting arbutus, or Mayflower as we called it, on the far side of
the pine woods, when we came upon Mr. Hecker walking rapidly up and
down in the secluded little dell that served him as a retreat. He was
wringing his hands and sobbing so violently that we two scared children
stole away, awed and mystified. Intruders on a scene that should not
have been witnessed, we said nothing about it at the time, and I have
never mentioned it until now.

Not long after this strange happening, Henry D. Thoreau came to the
Farm, and Mr. Hecker found in him a sympathetic companion. Presently
the two went away together, for the purpose, I think, of determining by
experiment the minimum amount of nourishment actually required to
sustain life. They never came back. Thoreau took to the solitude of
Walden, I suppose, and our baker found himself attracted to the
Catholic Church, eventually going abroad to study for the priesthood.
On taking orders he returned to New York, and during the rest of his
life was an earnest and influential, though somewhat independent toiler
in the vineyard of Rome; gaining, unsought, fame as Father Hecker. His
monumental work was the founding of the Paulist Fathers, a strong
organization, influential in the religious life of New York, though the
church and the home of the fraternity are located across the Hudson
river, in New Jersey.

On seeing Dr. Ripley and Mr. Hecker and Mr. Hosmer together, it seemed
to me they must be the dearest friends in the world. And they were very
near friends indeed, having many vital interests in common. Dr. Ripley
was a true minister of the Gospel; Mr. Hosmer had studied for the
ministry, and Mr. Hecker, as indicated, was a predestined priest. But,
as I learned later, sincere and even affectionate cordiality was the
distinguishing characteristic of the Brook Farmers in their relations
with each other. Their communications were yea, yea, and nay, nay, but
they were really glad to meet, glad to exchange greetings, glad to give
and to take the good word which was always forthcoming, and glad to
frankly manifest pleasure in their walk and conversation together. This
was the outward showing of the inward spirit of Brook Farm. It was
lovingkindness exemplified; and to appreciative visitors the
recognition of this Christian Spirit in the encounters of everyday life
was exhilarating as a draught of new wine, wine from the press of Edom
and Bozrah.

After a little chat, Dr. Ripley and Mr. Hecker went away together,
leaving me alone with Mr. Hosmer, with whom I stayed until supper-time.
He questioned me as to all the details of the toboggan slide venture,
which I was quite proud to report as eminently successful and, after I
had told him everything, even to my gaining a new name, he said, “Well,
you have arrived all right. You have been initiated. These young uns
don’t take anyone up and give them a name like that unless things go
suitably.”

I did not know what being initiated meant, so he explained that while
there was no such thing as hazing at Brook Farm, it was sometimes a
little hard for new pupils to take their right places until the older
ones found out what they were like.

Hazing had to be explained, too, so he told me that when he first went
to boarding school, the elder boys teased and tormented him, “putting
him through a course of sprouts,” as they termed it. They made him
spend what money he had in buying goodies which he was not permitted to
taste. They threw him into the canal, to see if he could swim, and then
dragged him around in the sand to dry his clothes. These and similar
delicate attentions they bestowed upon him to try his metal.

I ventured to hope that he being, of course, furiously angry, had
vented his rage upon them afterwards, as chance offered, but he said,
no, that would not do at all. The ordeal was to test a boy’s temper and
to find whether he could stand fire without getting mad or at least
without showing it. “You have passed your examination,” he added, “and
have been given your place among your companions, and I’m very glad of
it.”

Mr. Hosmer had general oversight of the boys as Mrs. Ripley had of the
girls. He informed me that I was to be quartered in Pilgrim Hall under
the guardianship of Miss Marian Ripley, and my mate was to be Bonico,
otherwise Isaac Colburne. Why Bonico? Well, just because he was Bonico.
A good friend he was, too, and Miss Ripley was a kind, judicious and
conscientious guardian; though we called her the grenadier, because she
was tall, very straight and rather stern looking.

On the way down from the Eyrie with the Page girls and John Cheever,
Annie informed me that my sister was to be called Dheelish. Mr. Cheever
was from Ireland, she said, and he had told the girl that Dheelish was
the Irish word for dear, and they had adopted it in place of Althea,
which, though a very nice name, very nice indeed, was, as they thought,
too old and too formal; and besides, added my companion, she is a dear,
you know.

I did know, and knew, too, there was another girl, not far away who was
also a dear. Sentimental? Well, yes. All boys are more or less
sentimental, only they are, mostly, too shy to admit it or even perhaps
to be aware of it.

On reaching the Hive we found Gerrish arriving bringing father and the
Rev. William H. Channing. At supper I bravely disposed of my bowl of
brown bread and milk, taking it as a matter of course, but secretly
hoping father would notice my improved appetite.

Sunday proved to be a blessed day in my calendar. Dr. Channing held
service in the dining-room and every person on the place was present,
with many more from the neighborhood and from Boston. The subject of
his sermon was the New Commandment:

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have
loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know
that ye are my disciples if ye have love to one another.”

Father always remembered that sermon, and referred to it many times in
later years. What I remember about it is that it awoke a new sense in
my dull mind of what practical Christianity really is. I realized that
I had been a selfish, stupid cub; trying my worst to make the worst of
everything, while every one else was trying their best to make the best
of everything. That was a good ending of what had been a threatening
phase of my first experience at Brook Farm.




CHAPTER VI.
ENTERTAINMENTS


Our slide down the Knoll proved very popular, and, with occasional
repairs, lasted all winter, making a welcome addition to our outdoor
diversions during the season when these were necessarily limited.
Living in the open was one of the salutary customs of the community, a
custom faithfully followed even in comparatively bad weather. Rain or
shine, snow or blow, save only in real storms, every one spent a good
many of the twenty-four hours under the broad skies. There was always
some work to be done, cutting wood, digging peat—the main reliance for
fuel—mending stone walls, and attending to the tree-nurseries. Then for
fun, there was coasting, skating, sleigh-riding and taking long tramps
over the place or to some distant point of interest. Exposure to the
elements seemed to harm no one, and coughs, influenzas and rheumatics
were unknown.

Withal, however, indoor pleasures took the most prominent place, during
the winter months. After the reorganization of the Association as a
Phalanx, Mr. John Dwight was the Chief of the Festal Series, and as he
was, first of all, a musician, it followed that music formed the
principal feature of our entertainments. Vocal and instrumental music
was thoroughly taught in the school, and, as nearly all the members of
the community were music lovers, and many were singers and players, the
place was melodious from morning until night. There was always some new
song or perhaps some very old one to be tried, some local composition
to be heard, or some preparation for future musical events to enlist
attention. Selections from the operas then known and now forgotten,
were given in the dining room; parts, with all the characters and
choruses, from “Zampa,” “Norma” and the “Caliph of Bagdad” recur to my
mind. Two public concerts were given to pay for a new piano, and as the
proceeds did not quite fill the bill, we all gave up butter, selling
the entire product of the dairy for three months to make up the
deficit. That was just like Brook Farm. The most ambitious performance
in my time was the rendition of the Oratorio of Saint Paul, which was
given twice by request, but this was in the summer when we had ample
room and verge enough in the pine-grove amphitheater.

We had another theater, a very little one, please, where light plays,
tableaux, readings and recitations and similar entertainments were
offered by the Dramatic Group during the winter. One member of this
group, Mr. John Glover Drew, was ambitious, and urged the presentation
of something more serious and edifying than merely amusing trifles,
and, accordingly, an excursion was made into the realm of the
melodrama. Glover, as he was called, was intensely Byronic, after the
fashion of the times, and he prepared a succession of thrilling scenes
from Byron’s sensational poem, “The Corsair,” for presentation by his
fellow players. This melodramatic production was staged with all the
pasteboard pomp and secondhand circumstance the little workshop theater
could afford and was given with all the fire the high-toned author
could impart to his company. The result was disastrous.

Glover was a very genial, jolly young man, a fellow of infinite jest,
and always full of fun, but his play was distinctly dismal. The spirit
of Brook Farm being as distinctly joyous, the melancholy drama went
against the grain, and the performance fell dolefully flat. It was the
one failure among the many successful entertainments offered by the
Festal series, and the members of the cast including the author, were
greatly depressed when the curtain went down with the auditorium
already nearly empty. Glover undoubtedly had his bad quarter-of-an-hour
that night, but the next morning he regained his usual equipoise, and
cast off his chagrin with a characteristic gibe, at his own expense. A
sympathetic friend ventured to ask if the fiasco was caused, perhaps,
by too much blood and thunder in the piece.

“Not blood and thunder, but thud and blunder,” was Glover’s quick
come-back.

We had two or three other plays in the shop, that season, in one of
which my father took a small part. This was “The Rent Day,” by Douglas
Jerrold, I think. The play opens with a tableau reproducing Wilkies’
picture of “The Rent Day,” and the most important thing my father had
to do was to sit at the head of the table in the character of Master
Crumbs, the steward. Peter Baldwin, who succeeded Mr. Hecker as
baker-general—being therefore given the title of General—usually did
the first old man business, but as he was suddenly called to Boston, my
father, who happened to be visiting us at the moment, was asked to fill
the role of Master Crumbs, which he consented to do, on short notice.
There never was such a thing as a theater in the Old Colonie and I can
imagine the disturbed feelings of the good Dutch burghers could they
have known that their respected fellow citizen, Charles Sears, Esq., of
the pier, was actually appearing on the stage as a play actor.

One play was given by the boys and girls, or rather by two boys and one
girl, Dolly Hosmer, Craze Barlow and myself. We did Box and Cox, a
short farce, produced to piece out a vaudeville program.

The first hour of our winter evenings at the Hive was, by common
consent, assigned to the younger generation, and story-telling was
regularly made its most attractive feature. Mr. Dana was one of our
best story tellers, and his narrations were instructive as well as
interesting. In an extended series he gave us accounts, partly
imaginary, of the beginnings of things, of the discovery and the first
use of iron, the evolutions of the boat, of primitive pottery, of
glass, etc.

I was never in Mr. Dana’s classes, Greek and German being beyond my
reach, but I saw something of him in the tree-nursery and the orchard
where I worked under him, he being Chief of the Orchard Group. I cannot
do better in trying to give an idea of him at Brook Farm than to quote
from Mr. John Thomas Codman’s Memoirs, as follows:

“Charles Anderson Dana, when, from Harvard College he presented himself
at the farm, was a young man of education, culture and marked ability.
He was strong of purpose and lithe of frame and it was not long before
Mr. Ripley found it out and gave him a place at the front. He was about
four and twenty years of age, and he took to books, language and
literature. Social, good-natured and animated, he readily pleased all
with whom he came in contact. He was above the medium height, his
complexion was light and his beard, which he wore full but well
trimmed, was vigorous and of auburn hue, and his thick head of hair was
well cut to moderate shortness. His features were quite regular, his
forehead high and full, and his head large. His face was pleasant and
animated and he had a genial smile and greeting for all. His voice was
clear and musical and his language remarkably correct. He loved to
spend a portion of his time in work on the farm and in the tree
nursery, and you might be sure of finding him there when not otherwise
occupied. Enjoying fun and social life, there was always a dignity
remaining which gave him influence and commanded respect.”


[Illustration: Charles A. Dana]

Later in life, as all the world knows, Mr. Dana attained high rank
among the great editors of this country, and that at a period when
personality counted for much more in the conduct of a newspaper than it
does to-day. He served this nation during the Rebellion as Assistant
Secretary of War, and was one of the counselors implicitly trusted by
President Lincoln in that trying time.

Charles Hosmer was another first class raconteur, his musical delivery
in reciting apt bits of poetry and other quotations adding to the
pleasure of hearing his accounts rendered. He gave us modern versions
of the Greek myths and hero legends, of Cadmus and Thebes, of Jason and
the Golden Fleece, of the Trojan epic, of the Delphic Oracle, etc.

Several years after leaving Brook Farm I was presented with a copy of
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book,” and was surprised and indignant to
find the author had actually taken our Brook Farm stories, told us by
Charles Hosmer and printed them, and that, too, without a word of
credit. Of course familiar renditions of the Greek legends have been
common property with English speaking people, for ages, but the
ignorant youngster who heard them at Brook Farm firmly believed the
copyright belonged to Charles Hosmer.

The young folk and children were not only told stories but were
encouraged to exercise their own talents in the same direction. Manuel
Portales gave an interesting account of native life in Luzon; and Angus
Cameron told us about the French habitants and their narrow little
strips of farms fronting on the Canadian streams, every farmer wanting
a littoral right, if only a few yards wide.

Our evening talks were often monologues, anyone with a word to say
having attentive hearers, if interesting, otherwise—not. A young lady,
distinguished as a public speaker, came to us with what was doubtless
an eloquent discourse on Woman’s Rights, and was much put out, after
orating awhile, to note that her glowing periods were falling on dull
ears. Our women-folk had all the rights of our men-folk. They had an
equal voice in our public affairs, voted for our officers, filled
responsible positions, and stood on exactly the same footing as their
brethren. If women were not so well off in the outer-world, they had
only to join our community or to form others like ours.

A leading temperance advocate undertook to lecture us on the terrible
evils of rum drinking and the crying need of promoting the great cause
of total abstinence. We were all total abstainers. There was not a drop
of rum on the Farm. In the exhilarating life of our community there was
no call for stimulants. We had none and wanted none. Rum was a curse in
civilized society but that was because society was disorganized. Let
reformers come and help us reform society and this evil with many
others would be remedied. So it was that the popular lecturer after an
hour’s earnest discourse came to the conclusion that these Brook
Farmers were very impolite indeed as they were all talking together
about plans for the new Phalanstery or some other equally important
subject.

Lectures were not on the list of our favorite pastimes. This
indifference to the attractions of the Lyceum was all the more
noticeable as there were several lecturers of repute among our own
members. In the decade 1840-1850 a wave of interest in what was then
known as Social Reform swept over Europe and America, and in the public
discussions of the time the teachings of Brook Farm practical reformers
were in constant demand. Dr. Ripley, John Dwight, John Allen, Ephraim
Chapin, Charles A. Dana and others were called out on lecturing tours
extending all over the Northern states, and, as most of this service
was gratuitous, the cost to the community was a heavy tax on our
limited resources. The socialistic propaganda was an educational
movement of unquestionable value, and, while the immediate objects
contemplated were never realized and are now lost to sight, yet the
agitation had a permanent influence in awakening intelligence, giving
an impetus to thought and enlarging the liberality of the public mind.

Oftentimes the long dining room was promptly cleared after supper for
some minor entertainment, a dance, in which everyone took part, being
always in order when nothing else demanded more immediate attention.
Miss Russell was a most efficient teacher of dancing and we all took
lessons, from the gaunt and grizzled old General to the little ones
just able to learn their steps. It was a marked characteristic of the
Farmers that they all joined hands in whatever was going on. With
unfailing unanimity they all moved together, flocking like birds in
whatever direction happened to be taken at the moment, even those of
the most pronounced individuality preferring to go the way of the
others rather than go his own way alone. The lovers of solitude, self
centered folk, egoists and searchers into the mysteries of their own
souls—Emerson, Hawthorne, Hecker and Margaret Fuller were out of place
in this united association where each person wanted, first of all, to
be in harmony with the common mind.

The dance was so much a matter of course that no preparations were
needed save the putting away of the tables and benches. The music was
always ready, a dozen or more players of the violin and piano relieving
each other in rendering sets of cotillons, waltzes and polkas, the
latter dance being then just in fashion.

Next to the dance, some form of musical diversion was in favor. After
the reorganization Mr. Dwight was Chief of the Festal Series, and as he
and his fiancee, Mary Bullard, were, in a way, professionals there was
always a musical programe in reserve that could be brought forward at a
moment’s notice. We often had musicians of distinction visiting the
place, and these gave us of their best, knowing their virtuosity would
be recognized and appreciated. Carlo Bassini, an eminent violinist,
played for us with great acceptance. His daughter, Frances Ostinelli,
who boarded at the Farm several weeks, sang most delightfully. She had
a glorious voice and, as Madame Biscacianti, subsequently attained fame
as a cantatrice.

The Hutchinson Family, once widely known at home and abroad, but now
pretty much forgotten, made a one-night-stand with us; and a company of
Swiss Bell Ringers also favored us in the same way.

The star artist who pleased us youngsters more than any other was
Christopher P. Cranch. He was not a professional, at that time, having
just completed his course of study for the ministry, but he was
certainly a most successful entertainer. There was nothing he could not
do. He was a painter of more than fair ability, a sweet singer, a poet,
a mighty good story-teller—and we knew a good story-teller when we
heard one—and he could play on any instrument from an organ to a
jewsharp. Whatever he undertook he did well, and his range of
accomplishment was amazing. As Miss Russell remarked his versatility
amounted to universatility. We liked and admired Mr. Cranch very much,
and with all his superficial levity he possessed sterling qualities
that commanded our respect. As an old school song says:

     “True winter joys are many
     With many a dear delight
     We frolic in the snowdrift,
     And then the Winter night.”


The many winter joys were all that such joys could be, and young folk,
not afraid of the weather, made the most of them. The winter nights at
the Hive were fairly filled with dear delights, and the youngest of the
young folk had their due share of the evening pleasures until nine
o’clock when they went to bed, except on special occasions like the
giving of a play, or a concert with some celebrity from Boston as a
star attraction. The winter had its pleasures, but it was summer that
was the real joyous season. There was a dear delight then, in just
living in the open air, as most of us did the greater part of every
day. Work in the fields with interesting companions, was an
exemplification of the socialistic doctrine of attractive industry. Men
and women, boys and girls, drawn together in groups by special likings
for the work to be done, made labor not only light but really pleasant.

Our entertainments, too, were in these happy days almost exclusively
free from the limitations of four walls and a ceiling. Rambles in the
woods and fields, excursions to Chestnut Hill or Cow Island, rowing
parties on Charles River, ball-games, athletic contests, swimming
matches, everything the Greeks ever did and more than they ever thought
of. Even our meals conveniently simple as they were, frequently took
the form of impromptu picnics on the Knoll.

The center of summer festivities was a natural amphitheater in the
beautiful pine-woods. Here was a little hollow, clear of trees which
served admirably well as an auditorium, and a bank at one end, leveled
down with very little artifice, made a spacious stage, or, if required,
a suitable rostrum. Here we had plays worth seeing and concerts worth
hearing. Here, too, Sunday services were sometimes held, to the
scandalizing of our Puritan neighbors, though when Dr. Channing
preached a saintly sermon and Mr. Dwight’s quartet rendered the
Gregorian chants, the service was an appropriate and impressive
expression of sincere religious sentiment.

Some of our Puritan neighbors called us heretics because we did not
believe in infant damnation or some equally profitable and comforting
doctrine of the orthodox faith, and, furthermore, we actually sang
hymns in Latin. All that was very bad to be sure, but then we kept the
commandments, eleven of them, ten in the old testament and one in the
new, and we dealt fairly with all men. We went to church too, either
having Sunday services at home or attending Theodore Parker’s church in
Brookline. However, both Theodore Parker and Dr. Ripley were
Unitarians, so that did not help us very much in the opinion of our
critics.

It may almost be said that Brook Farm was as much an outgrowth of
Unitarianism as of Transcendentalism. Nearly all the first members were
Unitarians and many of the later comers were of the same faith. The
congregation of the Unitarian church at Brookline usually contained a
considerable percentage of Brook Farmers, and at times a Unitarian
minister from the Farm officiated in that sacred edifice. Rev. Dr.
Ripley, Rev. John S. Dwight, Rev. George P. Bradford, Rev. Warren
Burton, Rev. John Allen and Rev. Ephraim Chapin were resident
ministers, and Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rev. William H. Channing and
Rev. James Freeman Clarke were warmly interested in the Association.
Charles K. Newcomb and Christopher P. Cranch also immediate friends,
were educated for the Unitarian ministry. Dr. Codman in his
“Recollections” speaks of seeing five Unitarian clergymen dancing in
the pine-grove at once.

One of the features of our holiday doings was the procession which
spontaneously came into order, after dinner, when there was anything to
the fore in the pine-woods. Then a parade took place like unto the
wedding march of the villagers in an old fashioned opera. There was
always some display of decoration on such occasions, usually floral,
the girls, wearing garlands and wreaths or sprays of vine and chaplets
of leaves. Headed, perhaps by the boys with fife and drum, or by the
members of the cast if a play was to be given, the whole community,
young men and maidens, old men and children, went singing from one end
of the place to the other, that is from the Hive near the entrance to
the Amphitheater near the far side of the grove.

When a high festival was to be celebrated, the procession took on the
picturesque dignity of a pageant. A real pageant we dearly loved, but
the show was too expensive to be offered more than once or twice
annually. We had to hire musicians as our own were too busy to serve.
Then the costumes and banners and hangings took a good bit of money,
though artistic ingenuity helped out amazingly. Where all the
magnificence came from was a mystery, the splendors of purple and gold,
of rich draperies, fine furbelows, shining garments and glittering
adornments being really splendid. Bonico and I, as Heralds, for
example, once were superbly arrayed in white tabards emblazoned with
red dragons and gold embroidery, cut from paper and pasted on white
muslin. There was a deal of real, genuine, sumptuous finery brought out
from family wardrobes for the pageant, but the hint as to the Heralds
indicated how an effect could be produced at small cost.

The finest pageant we ever had was arranged by the Festal Series, after
the reorganization. It was historic in design, illustrating the
Elizabethan period in England. Dr. Ripley personated Shakespeare; Miss
Ripley, Queen Elizabeth, in a tissue paper ruff, which I helped to
make; Mr. Dana, Sir Walter Raleigh; Mary Bullard, the most beautiful of
our young women, Mary Queen of Scots, and Charles Hosmer, Sir Philip
Sidney. The programme sent home to mother, at the time, gives a list of
the characters represented but it need not be further quoted here.


[Illustration: The Pageant]

The parade was formed on the Knoll and the line of march was up the
road to Pilgrim Hall, over to the Cottage, around the Eyrie, and down
the woodland way to the theater. The whole course was lined with
spectators, coming from Boston and from all the neighboring towns. At
the grove a series of historic tableaux presented the principal
personages in significant pictures, and these were accompanied by Old
English ballads and Shakespearian songs. The finale was a stately
minuet, beautifully danced by four couples. They had been drilled for
weeks by Miss Russell and as she was more than satisfied with the
performance, it was, no doubt, nearly perfect. The audience seemed to
be of that mind as they refused to disperse until the minuet had been
repeated.

The following season we had a smaller pageant, the costumed personages
being the characters in Shakespeare’s comedy “A Midsummer Night’s
Dream.” This was the most important play ever given in the grove, and
as an out-door production, it antedated any similar performance in
America. I have seen “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” given in the open
several times since, but the magic of the first impression has never
again been felt.

With all our love of recreation, there were no sedentary games in our
repertoire. Cards were unknown. The General was said to like a quiet
game of whist in his own room, but if he had a pack of cards, it was
probably the only one on the Farm. There was no prejudice against cards
or chess or any other game so far as I know, but no one cared for any
form of amusement that separated two or four from all the others. I
imagine that even courting, the divine solitude of two, must have been
handicapped by this persistent penchant for all being together.

The spell that drew these sympathetic associates like a magnet was in
great part that charm of the general conversation, the memory of which
still lingers wherever traditions of Brook Farm are cherished. The
never failing succession of entertainments especially in summer were
enjoyed to the full by the happy Farmers, but it was conversation, the
mutual exchange of bright ideas that afforded their chiefest enjoyment.
Not literature, not the drama, not the dance, but the fascination of
human speech in its best employ attracted and held their enthralled
attention. It is impossible to report in writing even the heads of this
discourse, pervading as it did the atmosphere of Brook Farm as currents
of electricity pervade the air in breaths. In a college-student’s ditty
is a strain conveying some hint of such parley:

     “We’ll sing to-night with hearts as light
     And joys as gay and fleeting
     As the bubbles that swim on the beaker’s brim
     And break on the lips at meeting.”


The bubbles that break on the lips are past mending. The effervescence
and sparkle of wine can only be known as the glass is filled. The fine
art of conversation can be perfected only by choice spirits whose
hearts are light, whose sprightly wit, gay good humor and alert
intelligence make their utterances almost intoxicating.

Some attempts have been made to chronicle famous Brook Farm
conversations but the best record could hardly be more than a jest
book. The alert sallies and quick retorts, the pat allusions and apt
quotations, the exaggerations, the absurdities, the shrewd witticisms,
the searching satires, the puns and improvised nonsense verses might
possibly have been registered on paper, but the spirit of merriment, of
good fellowship and mutual understanding that made thoughts to live and
words to sing—the spirit of Brook Farm—no snap-shot camera could ever
have caught.

These talks were not all for fun, either. Happy and blithesome, the
Farmers were, at heart, earnestly devoted to purposes held sacred. They
were inspired by high ideals. Noble conceptions and beautiful beliefs
found expression in fitting phrase. Rippling mirth flowed in an
undercurrent of serious, sincere faith and hope and love.

One more matter may be referred to in connection with our recreations,
namely, there was no hunting over our acres. The woods became a refuge
for birds and small game. No gun was ever heard there, and the shyest
creatures learned they were safe, among friends who loved them. Rabbits
excepted. Under Mr. Hosmer’s direction we boys trapped rabbits
industriously, not for sport but to prevent them overrunning the place.
From the traps they were transferred to the warren and thence either to
the kitchen or to market.

Gray squirrels troubled us some by raiding the cornfield next the woods
but their depredations were not very extensive. Ex-president Jefferson
had the same trouble at Monticello, the squirrels destroying the
outside rows of his cornfield. His feeble-minded brother conceived the
brilliant idea of checkmating the little robbers by not planting any
outside rows. The Farmers improved on this plan by planting an extra
outside row for the gray thieves to feed on.




CHAPTER VII.
THE SCHOOL


Education at Brook Farm began in the kindergarten—only we did not know
it. The word was not in the dictionaries of that period, and Froebel
was yet to be heard of in Massachusetts; but the rudiments of the
kindergarten system were devised and put in practice by our folk in
response to a new demand. The little ones, too old for the nursery and
too young for the school, demanded some adequate provision for their
care while their mothers were at work. In the community the one person
best suited to fill any requirement was directed to the undertaking by
natural selection. This was one of the normal though scarcely
recognized results of the organization of industry Among the many
workers there was always one who could do whatever was to be done
better than any of the others, and to this one, young or old, man or
woman, full charge of the work was given.

The one person best qualified to take charge of these toddlers was a
charming young lady, Miss Abby Morton, whose sincere interest in
children invariably gained their young affections. Miss Morton gathered
her group of older babies on the grass or under the elms whenever
weather permitted and at other times in the parlor of Pilgrim Hall. Her
first object was to make them happy and contented, and to this end she
invented and, arranged games and songs and stories, contrived little
incidents and managed little surprises with never failing ingenuity.
Learning as well as teaching, she gradually gave a purposeful bent to
her song-and-dance diversions, making them effective lessons as well as
pleasant pastimes. Health and strength for the growing babies were
promoted by proper exercises, a good carriage and graceful movement of
little arms and legs being duly considered. Polite manners, and the
correct use of language were taught by precept and example. More than
all, the juvenile minds were, directly and indirectly, drilled to
acquire the habit of paying attention.


[Illustration: A Pioneer Kindergarten]

The power of paying attention, of concentrating the whole force of the
mind on one object, is a native gift. Those who are endowed with this
gift are the men and women destined for high careers. They command
confidence. They are leaders in great undertakings. Success attends
them, humanly speaking, with certainty. There is, also, the faculty of
taking notice, of becoming consciously aware of the impressions
received by the senses. This faculty man shares with the animals below
him in the scale of being, and, in both man and brute, it is
susceptible to cultivation. Training the faculty of observation
develops the habit of paying attention, and this habit, though less
efficient than the inborn gift, may be so confirmed as to become second
nature.

Whatever the community accomplished or failed to accomplish, the Brook
Farm School rendered important service in educational progress by
demonstrating the practicability of cultivating the habit of attention.
The teachers in all classes and in all lessons throughout the school
made ceaseless efforts to win and hold attention. This was not
incidental or accidental, but was an integrate part of the educational
plan, intelligently designed and deliberately pursued, with intent to
train the pupils in the practice of concentrating their minds on the
one thing before them until it became a fixed habit.

Years after the Brook Farm School had closed its doors, I was called to
enter another school—the awful school of war. The first word I had to
learn in that school was the command, “Attention!”

Attention means life or death to the soldier; victory or defeat to the
army. In civil life it aids incalculably in promoting prosperity, the
ability to give instant attention to matters coming up for
consideration being one of the first qualifications of the successful
business man. And if he has not such ability originally it may be
imparted to him as a habit, by early training. Miss Morton did not
begin too early; and the teachers who followed her did not persist too
earnestly in the endeavor to impress this habit deeply on the minds of
their pupils.

When my own children were beginning to be interested in juvenile
literature, they found great pleasure in reading again and again “The
William Henry Letters” and other stories by Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz. On
making inquiry I was much gratified to learn that Mrs. Diaz was our
Abby Morton of the Brook Farm Kindergarten. It was no wonder she could
write letters and stories appealing to children. Her understanding and
her sympathies brought her in close touch with them. She knew their
minds and their hearts, their likes and their dislikes and what she
wrote of them and for them they accepted, knowing that every word was
true to nature. It is observable too, that in her writings she still
holds to the purpose of illustrating to her young readers the necessity
of early acquiring the habit of paying attention.

Brook Farm was practically an industrial school, though not so named.
It was the first I ever heard of where instruction in the useful arts
was regularly given as a part of the educational course. The fine arts
were not very extensively taught at the time, and all we had was
literature, drawing, music, and dancing. These four studies were very
well supplied with good teachers, everything the school promised to do
being well done, but they were not given nearly so much time as the
industrial arts. Every pupil old enough to work was expected to give
two hours every Monday and Tuesday, and every Thursday and Friday to
work under an instructor in the shops on the farm, in the garden or the
household. The pupils could select their own work and could make a
change of occupation with consent of the instructor. No one was obliged
to take the Industrial course, but very few declined, even the
aristocratic Spaniards taking hold of work like good fellows as they
were. Idling was not in fashion.

I worked, for a while, four hours every day in the week. Cedar was
found competent to act as first assistant to the president—in the
cow-stable. Care of the cow being regarded as a disagreeable duty, Dr.
Ripley took it upon himself, just as Mrs. Ripley took the scrubbing of
the kitchen floor. Mrs. Ripley had other little matters to look after,
general oversight of the girls, teaching Greek, entertaining
distinguished guests, writing clever musical plays for the Festal
Series, etc., but she kept the floor clean all the same.

In my honorable office I succeeded Nathaniel Hawthorne. The president
and Cedar arose at 5 A. M., fed and milked 18 or 20 cows, and cleared
up the stable. We bathed, dressed and breakfasted at 8 A. M. At 9 A. M.
Dr. Ripley was in his office and I in the school room. In the evening
two hours more were given to the cows. I liked the work, liked the
cows, and especially liked to be with Dr. Ripley. His flattering report
that Cedar could milk like a streak secured for me the maximum wage,
ten cents an hour, so that, at twelve years of age or thereabouts I was
earning nearly enough to pay the cost of board and lodging.

The milkers were necessarily late at breakfast and supper and these
meals we took with the waiters, the pleasantest company in the dining
room. Dr. and Mrs. Ripley were charming table companions and the bright
girls were merry as happy children. Perhaps Cedar did not fill
Hawthorne’s place quite so well at table as in the stable, but there
were no intimations given to that effect. Making the most of the
present moment was in order. Looking backward was not.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the first members to join the community
and was one of the first to leave it. He thought he could do better
than to spend his time and energy in digging over a manure-pile with a
dung fork. Do better he certainly did, for himself and for the world.


[Illustration: Nathaniel Hawthorne]

I have been asked more than once if the illustrious, poetic and
romantic Hawthorne did actually feed the pigs at Brook Farm. My answer
is that I do not know as I was not there during his residency, but I
think he did not, my reason for thinking he did not being that there
were no pigs to feed. The suggestion may have arisen from a passage in
his Notes when he speaks of going out with Rev. John Allen to buy a
litter of pigs. Minot Pratt, our head farmer, had some sort of interest
in a place across the brook, and there may have been a pig-pen there,
but if there was one on our place it was unknown to sharp-eyed
youngsters who knew every rabbit-run in the woods, and every swallow’s
hole in the sand banks. Many of the farmers were vegetarians and most
of them had a Hebraic aversion to pork. That viand was never seen on
the table except with the baked beans always served on Sunday; Mother
Rykeman managing to keep on hand a supply of middlings for the
bean-pot.

Hawthorne cherished kindly memories of Brook Farm and these memories
embodied in the Blithedale Romance show his warm and appreciative
interest in the life of the community. I fail to find anything like the
portrait-painting which others have discovered in the delineations of
Blithedale characters. There are personal traits alluded to suggestive
of Dr. Ripley, of Georgiana Bruce, of Orestes Brownson and others, but
these hints are not definite enough to identify them with the
personages of the book. As to the assumption that Margaret Fuller
served as a model for Zenobia, that seems to me so far fetched as to be
near absurdity.

Hawthorne visited Brook Farm occasionally, and I remember seeing him, a
large, handsome man, walking up and down the Knoll or seated under the
big elm, alone. He had not then attained fame and did not attract
attention as a celebrity.

My industrial education was not confined to the cow-stable. At
different times I worked in the green-house with John Codman, in the
fields and meadows with everybody, and in the orchard and tree-nursery
with Mr. Dana. On one occasion teacher and pupil were sitting on the
ground, budding peach-seedlings, when a stranger approached and
demanded a hearing. Gerrish had brought him out and had directed him to
Vice President Dana as the authority he should consult. “Free speech,
here,“ said the vice-president, without looking up from his work.

Speaking freely, the visitor announced that his mission was to save
souls, and he had a message of warning to deliver to sinners in danger
of eternal punishment. What he wanted was to have the people called
together that he might exhort them as to the terror of the wrath to
come.

“Our people do not need to be called. They come together every evening
without calling.”

“Can I have an opportunity to address them this evening?” asked the
missionary.

“You can,” said Mr. Dana, still busy, “but they have a way of not
listening, sometimes. I’ll tell you what, if you are able and willing
to preach a sound, old-fashioned, blue-blazes, and brimstone sermon,
you will get an audience. I would like to hear a real scorcher, once
more.”

So far from being encouraged the missionary hastily sought Gerrish and
departed on that worthy teamster’s return trip to Boston.

How right was wise old Dogberry in his dictum that reading and writing
come by nature. Nature surely favors some mortals, but to others she is
not so generous. I was one of the others. My sister Althea picked up
reading from the floor of the nursery, littered with our blocks and
picture books. She needed no lesson in Webster’s First Reader, but
Juferouw Van Antwerp had troubles of her own in elucidating to one, at
least, of her little boys, the mysteries of a, b, ab and c, a, t, cat.
Althea could write a fair hand while her slow brother was still
struggling with pot hooks and hangers. She could always spell correctly
without the aid of a Book, while to me the spelling lesson was the
hardest of tasks. Her studies at the Farm were easy and light—mine,
heavy and difficult.

One advantage of the high place of president’s assistant was that it
gave Cedar two free hours when other pupils were doing their industrial
stunts. These hours were devoted to study, and they were surely needed.
Manual training came, perhaps, by nature and in the industrial course I
progressed rapidly, but for the rest Miss Ripley was justified in her
remark that Cedar was not a “smart” scholar. However, steady Dutch
persistence compensated somewhat for lack of alert facility, and the
dull boy’s lessons were fairly well learned, though at the cost of
patient toil. In these out-of-school labors I was constantly assisted
by kindly teachers. More than willing to aid a pupil trying to get on,
these helpful instructors gave me many an hour during the four years I
was with them, taking time from their own precious leisure to assist a
scholar who could not be “smart” but who could be grateful, as he
always has been.

The class rooms were in the Cottage, Pilgrim Hall and Dr. Ripley’s
library. We were allowed five minutes to go from one class to another
but that was all. The day was not long enough for all we wanted to do,
and to be sharp on time was an absolute necessity; in the classes, at
meals, at work, at play, everywhere and always punctuality was required
by rule and enforced by the pressure of circumstances. There was no
hurry-skurry to disturb the even tenor of the way but there was not a
moment lost, and, while every movement was rapid, there were no false
starts made. Undivided attention was given to the matter in hand at the
moment and when that was disposed of, instantly the next thing in order
was taken up in the same efficient fashion, as if it were the shutting
of one book and the opening of another.

School work was done as far as practicable, out of doors. Teachers and
pupils, like everyone else at Brook Farm, loved to be in the open. We
lived in the free air so habitually that to be shut up in the house was
an irksome restraint. All summer long classes were held in the
amphitheater, under the elms, on the rocky or the grassy slopes of the
Knoll. Of course there were many lessons that could be given only in
class rooms, but recitations, examinations and mental exercises
generally were relegated to regions beyond the threshold. Botany,
geology, natural history and what was then called natural philosophy
were taught among the rocks, in the woods and in the fields with
illustrations from nature.

In the winter the school had to be housed, but except in stormy weather
we managed to see a good deal of the sky. Study of the stars with the
whole population of the place standing around in the snow while Dr.
Ripley discoursed on the constellations—that was indeed an outdoor
lesson worth remembering. Such a lesson might involve exposure to cold,
but we were hardy and no one was harmed either at the moment or
afterward by a little touch of temperature down toward the frost line.

Trees and plants were studied in the woods and fields. The botany class
made excursions, gathering specimens of the flora on the Farm and in
the neighborhood, with peripatetic lectures by the way. Instruction in
geology was given on the rocks, hammer in hand. Birds and the animal
life of the locality we became acquainted with at close quarters. They
were tame and friendly, being protected, cared for and never disturbed,
and we learned their ways habits and characteristics by intimate
association. Kindness to animals was taught and practiced first, last
and all the time, and every living creature from the ox at the plow to
the swallow building in the sandbank was gentle and not afraid.

The only cruel thing we ever did was to cut down through the middle of
an ant’s nest in the pine woods. Our Natural History Club, of which
both old folk and young folk were members, made quite a thorough study
of ants, at one time, and, for the purpose of illustrating a lesson,
John Cheever drove a spade through the center of a nest and shoveled
away, one half of it. There were several of these nests in the pines,
each consisting of a pile of sand about two feet high and perhaps a
yard across at the base, and the structure we examined was filled with
chambers and galleries which we found were also extended a foot or so
under ground. The destruction of the ant hill was regretted by some of
the more scrupulous students, but the exhibit gave us more real
knowledge of the industries, the habits of life, the architecture, the
skill and the intelligence of the Formicidae, than we gained in any
other way. We were immensely interested in these ant studies, and
bought all the books about them we could find. Afterward I made a
little book myself, giving the results of our investigations set forth
in papers read at meetings of the Club, notes of experiments, and of
Mr. Hosmer’s lectures or rather talks on the wonderful works of the
Formicidae. The publication of this book marked my first appearance in
the literary world.

Charles Hosmer was a born naturalist. Every form of life was of
surpassing interest to him. In our walks abroad he saw everything there
was to be seen. His observation was not only alert but was minute and
accurate. He seemed to know every plant and insect and bird and animal
on the Farm, and had something worth while to tell us about anything
and everything that attracted attention.

Instruction was not confined to the studies of the classes. Except in
the hours when pupils were left to their own devices, there was always
a teacher or a guardian at hand giving intelligent direction to
whatever was going on, maintaining discipline in the fundamental
requirement of paying strict attention, and imparting information
respecting the subject in hand.

By way of illustration it may be noted that Minot Pratt was the head
farmer during the early days and a good farmer he proved to be. He not
only worked wonders with the poor soil of the place but managed at the
same time to give a deal of thought and care to his industrial classes.
The boys and girls who elected to work in the fields and gardens with
Minot Pratt received many a valuable lesson in botany, agricultural
chemistry, and the planting, cultivating and harvesting of crops.

Mr. Pratt and his family left Brook Farm when the association was
reorganized as a Fourierite Phalanx, and was succeeded by John Codman,
who, under the new order, was made Chief of the Agricultural Series, a
post which he filled with signal ability during the remaining years of
the community’s existence. The Codmans were important members of the
Phalanx taking responsible places in the management of affairs, and
fully demonstrating the practicability of abiding by Christian
principles in every day life. They were the last to leave the place,
remaining to assume the sad task of winding up the details of final
settlements.

At one time I worked in the flower garden and the conservatory with one
of the Codman boys whom I called Baas, as he was my elder and my
superior in the business of raising plants, shrubs and flowers for
market. The economic worth of kindness to animals is shown by our daily
use of a prize bull as a draught animal to draw the cart in hauling
manure, to drag the cultivator in the garden and similar tasks. He was
a magnificent creature, a gift from Francis George Shaw and was, at
most seasons so gentle and docile that the Baas used to ride on his
back between the barn and the garden.

Wednesdays and Saturdays were half-holidays not only for the school but
for the entire community. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoon the whole
place was en-fete. Work was suspended except the simple household
duties and the care of the animals, and the hours were devoted to
having a good time. The pupils were allowed to do as they pleased, and
it pleased us boys sometimes to be robbers and brigands and smugglers
in a cavern behind the Eyrie. Here we could build a fire on condition
that no fire was ever to be built elsewhere. This dark and dismal cave
occupied a conspicuous place in my memories of Brook Farm for many
years until in later life, I took my daughter to visit the old place,
when puffed up pride had a bad fall. When we came to the cave, I could
hardly believe my own eyes. That spacious den of thieves, that resort
of bold outlaws was a cleft between two great boulders. One could crawl
into it and turn around and that was about all, It surely must have
shrunk or filled up or contracted or something, such a poor little
quart-pot of a cavern it proved to be.

There was another boulder which, on the same occasion, served me a
better turn, enabling me to identify the site where Pilgrim Hall had
stood. This one of the many big rocks scattered about the place was
located immediately in front of Pilgrim Hall, and I recognized it by a
certain little pouch or pocket next the ground on its southerly side; a
circumstance I had cause to remember as it cost me money. The pupils of
the school were allowed a trifle of money, weekly, which we could spend
in any way we liked. Occasionally we went over to the street and bought
oranges or plantains—bananas—rarely sweets, as the sticks of candy,
striped like a barber’s pole in a glass jar on the end of the store
counter were not very tempting. Often we chipped in our pennies, boys
and girls together, and commissioned Gerrish to purchase some book we
wanted or perhaps some bit of finery for festal decoration.

There was one boy who did not take part in our financial ventures. What
he did with his money we did not know, but we never saw a cent of it.
He was ready enough to share our goodies but carefully kept his cash in
his own hands. One day when we were playing three-old-cat in front of
Pilgrim Hall, we lost the ball and searched for it in vain. Steediwink,
as one of the older boys was familiarly called, in groping around the
foot of the boulder above referred to, found a hole in the rock into
which he thrust his hand. At the far end of the hole was a sort of
shelf and thereon was piled a hoard of small change. If everyone knew
whose treasury we had opened, no one named any names, and the find was
forthwith confiscated for the benefit of the festival fund.

Some days later, Mr. Hosmer in his evening talk to the children very
significantly stated that one of the scholars had lost a sum of money
and asked us to try and find it and bring it to him that he might
restore it to the rightful owner. It took all our allowances for
several weeks to make up the needed amount, but finally the lost cash
was found, and Mr. Hosmer thanked us, again very significantly, for
aiding him in squaring up a somewhat grievous account. The miserly boy
was of course to be commended for thrift, but he was not of our kind
and did not remain long in our company. He took care of his pence and
his pounds took care of themselves, no doubt in later life, but that is
only surmise as he was one of the few that we others did not try to
keep track of after Brook Farm became a thing of the past.




CHAPTER VIII.
ODDMENTS


John Cheever was our eccentric character; not a crank, not an egotist,
not an enthusiast and not a Socialist, but just a plain, good-natured,
shrewd-witted Irishman, who, for some reason, liked to live at the
Farm. He never joined the Association or the Phalanx but just stayed on
as a permanent boarder. He was the newsman and general gossip of the
place, going about from house to house and from group to group, working
a little here and a little there, as he pleased, and always having
something interesting or amusing to tell, his brogue giving a comic
twist to his ever ready jest. Taking no part in the regular industries
except as his humor dictated, he was yet a very busy person and very
helpful in many ways. When there was any out-of-the-way job to be done
it was John Cheever who did it, and especially in the work of preparing
for entertainments, he was the handy man of the Festal Series, Stage
carpenter, scene shifter, door keeper, painter and utility man on the
stage. Though not attached to any of the industrial groups, he took
upon himself certain duties which he never neglected. In winter he took
care of the fires at night, going the rounds from the Hive to the
Eyrie, the Cottage and Pilgrim Hall in all kinds of weather with
faithful regularity. Our main dependence for fuel was peat, or turf, as
John Cheever called it, and to keep the rooms warm with this low-grade
fuel, the fires had to be renewed every five or six hours.

Another of John Cheever’s self-imposed tasks was the care of cranks.
Though somewhat peculiar himself he had no use for odd fish—queer folk
and the like—and kept a sharp look-out for erratic strangers. Of these
there was a constant succession coming to the Farm; reformers of
everything under the sun; fanatics demanding the instant adoption
of—their nebulous theories; mental aliens not quite crazy but pretty
near it; egotists, wild to be noticed, freaks and fakirs and humbugs of
every description, and, worst of all, wrecks of humanity seeking refuge
from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. These creatures, all
and sundry, John Cheever made it his business to look after. The moment
Gerrish landed one of the tribe at the Hive, the watchman spotted him,
so to speak, and presently managed to steer him off the place.

Gerrish brought a chap to the Hive one cold winter evening who
announced to the assembly gathered in the parlor after supper, that he
had discovered a method of living without sleep. Sleep was unnecessary,
a habit that could be overcome and he had succeeded in demonstrating
that life could be sustained perfectly well without that needless waste
of time. He had not slept during more than a year past and he purposed
to remain wide awake during the years to come.

It may be taken for granted that John Cheever kept an eye on this
fellow. He was treated as a favored guest, his host accepting his
theory and putting it in practice with him that same night. Toward
morning he was comfortably settled in the library with an interesting
book to while away an hour when his entertainer made the rounds to look
after the fires. Returning to the library, the fireman found the
theorist sound asleep in Dr. Ripley’s big armchair. Giving the man a
vigorous shake, John Cheever politely requested him not to snore quite
so loud as he was disturbing the family. After that there was nothing
for the sleepless person to do but wait for Gerrish to take him away.

Bonico and I trapped another fakir soon afterward though by accident
rather than design. This specimen was a genius inspired by the belief
that cooking is the source of all the ills that flesh is heir to. He
lectured us on the folly of eating boiled and roasted and toasted food,
declaring that we must subsist on nature’s products as she gives them
to us, just as other animals do. Nature affords an abundant supply of
grains and fruits and nuts and roots, and it is our place not to change
these things by fire but to take them as they are offered to us.

As heretofore noted, our fare was simple enough, and after our spare
meals there was very little left on the tables to be cleaned away. What
small leavings of scraps and crumbs there happened to be, were brushed
onto a big salver and placed outside the kitchen door. My chum and I
had to go out in the evening and take this salver out to the chicken
run behind the barn. We had seen the dietetic reformer wandering about
the place for a day or two, constantly chewing wheat which he carried
in a bag hanging conspicuously from his belt. He did not come into the
dining room or take regular meals, claiming to be sufficiently
nourished by the raw wheat he masticated so industriously. We had not
noticed him especially—no one took much notice of pretentious
faddists—but on going around to the back door for the chicken-feed one
evening Bonico and I recognized the wheat-muncher bending over the
salver eagerly picking up whatever bits and pieces he could find to
eat. He was so engaged in this employ that we did not disturb him but
quietly slipped away and reported the case to John Cheever. That
guardian of the peace immediately trotted off to the kitchen, gathered
up a plate of food and rushed out to the diet reformer, exclaiming:
“Here is your supper! No one need go hungry at Brook Farm.” That was
the last of this particular specimen; but there were others, so many
others that they would have been intolerable but for the watchful care
that protected us from too troublesome invasions.

John Cheever’s most appreciated service to the community was his
addition of Irish oatmeal to our scanty bill of fare. He did not care
for brewis and brown bread any more than I did and for his own
satisfaction he wrote to friends in the old country to send him a
consignment of Irish oatmeal. In due time Gerrish delivered a hundred
weight of this new provender, sealed in tin cans. It made such a
surprisingly good breakfast that we went through those tins cans in
short meter. A larger supply was sent for at once, and thereafter
oatmeal was always on the breakfast table. We presently found that when
a can was opened the contents very soon turned rancid; and thereupon
Glover Drew hunted up a grist-mill that ground our own oats for us.
Making more than we needed, Glover Drew tried to find a market for the
surplus, but no one would have it at any price.

John Cheever was the one person in all West Roxbury who sympathized
with my sister and myself in the most grievous trial we ever
encountered as children. The Brook Farmers and all their neighbors
ignored Christmas. They knew nothing and cared nothing about that
wondrous season of joy for the little ones, and could not in the least
understand how it was that Althea and I were so sorely hurt by such a
trifle as the neglect of an old and forgotten custom. John Cheever did
understand. He was a Catholic and while not at all devout, he still
held in reverence the sacred observances of the church. He it was who
explained to us that the New England Puritans were bitterly hostile to
anything and everything savoring of what they called Popery, imposing
severe penalties on misguided wretches who dared to show respect for
old beliefs. He said that the General Court of Massachusetts had
enacted a special law against the keeping of Christmas, visiting with
fine and imprisonment the transgressors who dared to celebrate that
Popish festival. It was the misfortune and not the fault of the Brook
Farmers that the Bethlehem Birthday was no more to them than Saint
Jude’s day or the Feast of the Tabernacles.

In the Old Colonie Christmas was the one great day of all the year for
children. We did not have the Christmas tree, but we had the Bethlehem
manger in the Dutch Reform Church at the foot of the high pulpit and
dominie Bogardus told us the story of the Birthday of Our Lord in
simple words which we could all understand. Early in the morning we ran
down to the sitting room where our stockings were hanging from the
mantel shelf filled by Santa Claus with Christmas gifts, with more
piled on the table for our friends and for poor families. That was what
an effusive writer once called the “halcyon and vociferous” beginning
of the day.

In the afternoon the boys went abroad bearing gifts, and the girls kept
open house at home receiving visitors bringing more Christmas presents.
In the evening, children’s parties were in order, with traditional
games brought over from the old country by the Walloons. Old fashioned
costumes were worn at these parties, Utrecht velvet being much in
favor. My velvet suit proved available in more than one of our Brook
Farm costume shows—only it was not worn at Christmas time.

It must have been one of the last days of December when Gerrish brought
us a belated Christmas box and Christmas letters from home. That was
the first intimation coming to Althea and myself that our most precious
holiday was at hand. Dumfounded, we realized too late that Christmas
Day had passed without our knowing it. It was simply incredible! We
could not comprehend, much less be reconciled to, such an inconceivable
state of affairs. Our trouble, however, was all our own. No one else
had any part or lot in it except John Cheever. Our dearest friends and
companions were politely sorry we had missed something, they did not
know what—and that was all. They had no more conception of what
Christmas meant to us than of what the Passover means to Israel.

Our box was filled Christmas goodies, olecokes and crullers, candies
and cookies and all the fifty-seven varieties of Dutch dainties proper
to the season; and on New Year’s eve good Mrs. Rykman made this store
of sweets the nucleus of an impromptu feast designed for our comfort
and consolation. It was well meant and well managed and the kindly
feeling manifested made up in part for the disappointment we had
experienced; but the Christmas of that year was a dead loss—a loss that
I regret to this day.

At Brook Farm, however, there was small chance to indulge in regrets
and the Christmas trouble had to give place to more immediate
interests. The Farmers were, first of all, Transcendentalists which is
to say they were philosophers and not given to repining. Their
philosophy was not stated in their public announcements but was
expressed in their lives. It may be formulated as the philosophy of
Here and Now.

Here and Now; on the spot, with the goods, at the moment. Not
yesterday; not to-morrow, but to-day, this hour, this instant is the
appointed time to live for all you are worth. Put your heart in your
work right Here. Give your mind, your skill, your energy to whatever
you have in hand just Now. Respect for the past, for its traditions and
its memories is all right but never look back intently enough to
prevent seeing what is before you Here and Now. Hope for the future is
all right, but let not dreams of the good time coming becloud clear
comprehension of the realities at hand Here and Now. That was the
philosophy of the Brook Farmers, not set forth in words, but set forth
in deeds. To be on the spot, with the goods at the moment—this was
their ideal and they lived up to it every day and all day long.

Their Puritan neighbors professed a philosophy of the hereafter, and
although they did not live up to it constantly, they proclaimed it all
the more vehemently. Not in the life of this wicked and weary world but
in the life of the world to come their hopes and especially their fears
were centered. Miserable sinners, born into total depravity could only
employ their brief sojourn on earth in striving to save their souls.
Mortifying the flesh and holding all pleasures to be foolish if not
impious, they deferred happiness to the realms beyond the skies. To
them Here was nothing and Now was nothing. The eternal hereafter was
all. Looking at life as merely a preparation for death, their point of
view was diametrically opposite to that of the Farmers who looked upon
life as a phase of existence to be made the most of and to be enjoyed
to the full with every breath from first to last. Naturally enough,
perhaps, the devout pietists regarded the cheerful worldlings as lost
beyond hope of redemption. The same sentiments that prompted the
whipping and hanging and persecuting incidents of Puritan history were
entertained by the orthodox elect of Roxbury and were manifested Brook
Farmward sometimes with sullen hostility. The young folk of the
neighborhood came to our entertainments gladly enough, but some of the
harsh-visaged elders would have found greater satisfaction in
administering stern old-fashioned discipline if their power to deal
with malignants had only been what it was in the days when their kind
ruled Massachusetts Bay Colony with a rod of iron.

It was these pleasurings of ours that brought down on us the severest
anathemas. We were idlers forever singing and fiddling and dancing when
honest folk were at work. This criticism was in part true. We certainly
did devote more time and more attention to recreation than was
customary among working folk. The two half-holidays of the week were
set apart for diversions. All care and toil came to a full stop, and
everyone was free to do exactly as he or she pleased. Usually all hands
pleased to be together, after the Brook Farm fashion, everyone joining
in whatever scheme of amusement was on foot for the day.

After the reorganization the Festal Series took systematic charge of
the holidays and there was always something worth while provided for
the afternoon or evening or both, in which all of us were ready to take
part and eager to enjoy.

The Brook Farm Association was at first organized as a joint stock
company. The stated objects of this company were the conduct of a
school, a farm, a printing and publishing business and other light
industries. The unstated purpose was the carrying out of a social
experiment; a practical attempt to form a community living what we
would now call the Simple Life. Incidentally there was a deliberate
intent to make the most of opportunities for promoting happiness. These
bright, intelligent, cultured young people set out to have a sane,
sensible, joyous good time in the world, and they certainly succeeded
wonderfully well in this endeavor. I can truly say I have never known
any company anywhere who enjoyed this earthly existence more thoroughly
than did these Brook Farmers. They believed the Good Lord meant this
life to be beautiful and harmonious and they set out in good faith to
make it conform to the Divine idea. They were happy, on principle, so
to speak. To this end they consistently demonstrated the worth of good
cheer, good companionship and good entertainment. Recreation and
amusement were as much a part of their programme as tilling the soil,
teaching school or keeping house. To wake up every morning eager to
begin an active, interesting, joyful day, without a thought of
anxiety—that was their ideal, and, like their other ideals, this was
fairly realized.

Our critics held that we had no moral right to give up a whole day each
week just for fun. This might have been true had we been trying to get
rich, but getting rich was not the first object we contemplated. Other
things came before wealth-seeking, but, all the same, in competition
with those who thought ill of our ways, we beat them all to pieces. In
Boston markets Brook Farm products were at a premium and found quicker
sale at better prices than the West Roxbury farmers and gardeners could
command. They sent potatoes in the bottom of a wagon; apples in a soap
box; berries in a battered tin pail and butter in an old cracked crock;
none of these things being particularly clean. Our girls put up our
garden stuffs in neat, regular parcels. The quality of the orchard and
farm and dairy products was invariably the best; and everything was
fresh as possible, and neat and attractive in appearance. I will
venture to say we got more money from an acre of ground in five days
than any of our neighbors did in six. Perhaps that was another reason
why they did not like us.




CHAPTER IX.
FOURIER AND THE FARMERS


In the language of the time the Farmers were Socialists, but the
Socialism of 1840-50 was a very different proposition from the
Socialism of to-day. The earlier socialists were not in politics. They
had no party, politically speaking, and took only a remote and indirect
interest in political affairs. What they wanted was to reform the
world; to reconstruct civilization on a scientific basis. That was what
President Lincoln was wont to call a big job. However, faith will move
mountains, and the socialists certainly had faith. Their purpose was
far reaching, to be sure, but, after all, it rested on a very simple
basis. Reduced to a syllogism it might be stated as follows: Major
premise: Every human being desires happiness. Minor premise: Socialism
provides for the happiness of every human being. Conclusion:
Demonstrate this truth and every human being will become a socialist.
Q. E. D.

The socialists were at first called Fourierites but this rather long
title very soon gave place to the more convenient word here used. The
science of right living was evolved by Charles Fourier, a French savant
who gave his life to humanitarian studies. His fundamental concept was
that the Creator and Ruler of the Universe instituted one law; one
edict of the Divine Will, one all-inclusive order, regulating and
controlling everything that is. This is the Law of the series. The
stars in their courses move in the serial order, and the leaves
clothing the trees obey the same cosmic code. Fourier’s first axiom
was: The series distribute the Harmonies. That is to say, the operation
of the Law of the series brings about harmonious results. The stars
traverse serenely their proper orbits, influencing each other in a
perfect balance of harmonious relations. The leaves burgeon on the
branches in the serial order that gives to each its share of sun and
rain. Human society to reach its highest development must come into
harmonious relations with the stars, with the leaves, with everything
that exists in the universe, under the Divine Law of the series. To
this end society must be reconstructed in the order of the series.

_Organization of Labor_


Labor is the prime factor of human affairs. By Labor the race is to
subdue the earth that the earth may be our heritage. This is the first
command with a promise given in the Bible. To fulfill the Divine
purpose Labor must be brought under the Divine Law, the Law of the
series.

Disorganized Labor cannot subdue the earth, hampered as it is by waste,
by loss, by repulsive and dangerous tasks, by fruitless toil, by class
hostilities, by warring communities, by the monopoly of gains, and by
the thousand penalties incurred by disorderly opposition to Law.

The Organization of Labor will evolve Attractive Industries; Harmonious
Communities, and will ensure the Equitable Distribution of Gains and
the protection afforded by Mutual Guarantees.

These communities will illustrate Fourier’s second axiom. Attractions
are Proportioned to Destinies. Every being born into this world has a
place in the work of subduing the earth, suited to his abilities and to
his tastes. In the Organized Community this place will be open to him.
He will be attracted to those industries in which he is destined to do
his best work.

The Series Distribute the Harmonies, and, under the Law communities
will be drawn together by natural attraction. The Law ensures
harmonious relation and there will be no competitions, no grasping
monopolies, no clashing of opposing forces. The welfare of each
individual will be identified with the welfare of all. The community of
Organized Laborers, living together and working together in Attractive
Industries, will be a solid Phalanx of united interests. The Phalanx
will assume responsibility for the welfare of each member from birth to
death. The provision of Mutual Guarantees will insure to each a good
home, good living, good education for the young, good care for the aged
and good opportunities for work and for recreation while life lasts.
Each one will be perfectly free to follow those congenial pursuits the
attractions of which are proportioned to his destiny. The final
consummation as announced by Fourier in his third axiom, will be the
Unity of Man with God, with Man, and with Nature.

The apostle of Fourierism in America was Albert Brisbane. By nature a
humanitarian and by earnest study a profound scholar, he recognized a
germ of truth in the theory of the Transcendentalists that humanity is
suffering from evils which if not remedied must result in disaster. The
remedy he found in Socialism. While sojourning in France he came under
the personal influence of Charles Fourier and, was a member of the
circle of converts drawn around the founder of Socialism—not the
political Socialism of to-day, be it again said, but the Socialism of
1840, devoted to the reorganization of civilized society, on a
scientific basis; the re-formation of human institutions under the
universal Serial Order.

Returning home, Mr. Brisbane established a socialistic propaganda which
for ten years or more exercised a wide influence on the public mind of
this country land awakened an intense interest in the socialistic
movement. He translated the works of Fourier and published them at his
own cost. He had a column in Horace Greeley’s _Tribune_ where he
expounded the new doctrines and gave practical instruction to his
followers. An eloquent and persuasive speaker, he lectured constantly
all over the country, and formed socialist clubs and societies and made
converts with whom he maintained an active correspondence. At flood
tide he estimated that the socialists in the United States numbered
more than 200,000. I believe the records show forty-two communities
organized on the socialistic plan during the decade above referred to.
There were two in the state of New York; two in Pennsylvania, two in
Ohio; two in New Jersey, and two in Massachusetts, namely Hopedale and
Brook Farm.

Of course Mr. Brisbane came to Brook Farm. I remember him as a tall,
rather slender young man, somewhat bent forward, alert and impulsive in
manner, quick of gesture and of speech, and a charming talker. Filled
with enthusiasm, glorying in the great cause he stood for,
self-sacrificing, giving himself absolutely to the redemption of
humanity, he converted the Farmers to the Fourierite theories and
induced them to put these theories to the test of actual experiment.
Minot Pratt and one or two other skeptics left the Association, but the
rest of the members unanimously voted to reorganize as a Fourierite
Phalanx.

When this was accomplished Mr. Brisbane made Brook Farm a sort of
headquarters for the Socialistic propaganda, and enlisted several of
the members as lecturers and teachers of humanitarian science. _The
Harbinger_ was established as the Fourierite organ in this country. Dr.
Ripley and Mr. Dana were the editors, and it was a Brook Farm
publication. There was, however, very little of Brook Farm news in its
columns, and no advertising. Besides the exposition of socialistic
doctrine there were book reviews, musical notes, and fiction, the most
important novel being George Sands’ “Consuelo,” translated for the
paper by Francis George Shaw. _The Harbinger_ never paid expenses, and
the editors and contributors gave their services in aid of the cause it
advocated. Among those who wrote for the journal were Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Albert Brisbane, Wm. H. Channing, Elizabeth Peabody, and
Margaret Fuller.

Elizabeth Peabody, though not a member of the Association was warmly
interested in its work and in its welfare. In one of her contributions
to _The Dial_, the organ of the Transcendentalists, she wrote, in part,
as follows: “There are men and women who have dared to say to one
another, ‘Why not have our daily life organized on Christ’s own idea?
Why not begin to remove the mountain of custom and convention?’ In
order to live a religious and moral life, they feel it is necessary to
come out in some degree from the world and form themselves into a
community of property so far as to exclude competition and the ordinary
rules of trade, while they preserve sufficient private property for all
purposes of independence and isolation at will. They make agriculture
the basis of their life, it being most direct and simple in relation to
nature. A true life although it aims beyond the stars, is redolent of
the healthy earth. The perfume of clover lingers about it. The lowing
of cattle is the natural bass to the melody of human voices.”

Miss Peabody was one of the children’s friends at the Farm. She was
much interested in the school and when she had something to say to us,
the classes all came together and listened to her pertinent words with
earnest attention. I cannot say as much for her co-worker, Margaret
Fuller. Her monologues in the parlor at the Hive failed to attract the
notice she evidently thought they deserved, and I am afraid, on the
whole, her experiences at the Farm were rather disappointing to her.
She occupied a room in the cottage, and I have heard that the little
house has since been called the Margaret Fuller Cottage, but no one
ever thought of so naming it in the early days.

Let not this record of a boy’s impressions be read as detracting from
the luster shining about the memory of Margaret Fuller. She was highly
respected and esteemed by all Brook Farmers and the friends of the
community during her life of faithful service, and her tragic death was
a source of grief deep and sincere to all who knew her worth. After the
community broke up, she went to live in Italy, and there was happily
married to the Count d’Ossoli. Returning to America with her husband
and child, a happy wife and proud mother, the vessel on which they were
passengers was wrecked off Fire Island, and all on board were drowned.
Almost within sight of home, and almost within reach of help from the
shore, Margaret Fuller and her dear ones perished together. There was
no Life Saving Service at that time, and watchers on the beach had no
means of rescuing the voyagers who met death as they were drawing near
to the end of their journey.

When the Brook Farm Association became the Brook Farm Phalanx, the
industries of the place were organized in the serial order. The tilling
of the soil was conducted by the Agricultural Series, with special work
assigned to different groups, as the Farming group, the Orchard group,
the Garden group, etc. The household affairs were in charge of the
Domestic Series, comprising the Kitchen group, the Laundry group, the
Waiters’ group—a very jolly group, that, and two or three others. The
Manufacturing Series directed the work of the trades; and the Festal
Series had charge of recreations and entertainments. The last named
series had attractions proportioned to the destinies of every member of
every group in the industrial organization, and a deal of care and
attention were deliberately given to its functions. Six days we labored
and did all our work and did it well. We did not labor the same number
of hours each day but took two half-holidays every week for having a
royal good time under the management of the Festal Series.

No one was closely confined to any of the specialized groups but, as a
rule, every one found his right place and attended strictly to business
therein; subject, however, to an emergency call in case of need. In the
planting season and the harvesting season, for example, we could put
fifty hands in the field, or more if required. Agriculture was our main
interest and farming became a very attractive industry when potatoes
were to be quickly put in the ground or when hay was to be rushed to
the barns.

On the whole it can be truly said that the serial order worked first
rate in agriculture, which I happened to know most about, and the
practical experiment of organizing industry was immensely successful so
far as getting work done was concerned. As to profit and loss that is a
matter about which I am not informed.

Agriculture is the basis of support for the human family and will
continue to be the basis in the new dispensation. The Organization of
Labor in agriculture will necessitate the drawing together of workers
in communities, each neighborhood uniting to dwell at a convenient
central location. At this central home, all the problems of the
isolated household will be provided for by this organized community, by
the conduct of domestic affairs in the scientific order of the series.
Such a community will be a Phalanx, and the Phalanx will be the unit of
Organized Society.

Fourier anticipated many inventions, mechanical devices for taking the
place of handiwork in the household, among others. The hard and the
disagreeable tasks now assigned to servants, would in the Phalanx be
performed on a large scale by machinery.

There were no servants at Brook Farm. Every one served but no one was
hired to serve. Household drudgery was reduced to the lowest
practicable minimum. We did not live on the fat of the land, and that
made a wonderful difference in the kitchen work,—that was at first.
Later we had to employ farm-laborers and mechanics and as they needed
meat for strong men, it became necessary for greasy Joan to keel the
pot, and Joan was imported for that purpose.

Our plain fare—very plain indeed it was—occasioned a good deal of
comment among our friends. They were afraid we would starve but we
didn’t. We were all splendidly well, kept in fine condition and in the
best of high spirits. The very few-cases of sickness on the place were
every one of them brought there from elsewhere, until the advent of the
scourge—and that too, we brought or was possibly sent, from outside our
healthful borders.

On the whole, again, from the social point of view, the Brook Farm
experiment was eminently successful. We were happy, contented, well-off
and care-free; doing a great work in the world, enthusiastic and
faithful, we enjoyed every moment of every day, dominated every moment
of every day by the Spirit of Brook Farm.




CHAPTER X.
UNTO THIS LAST


There were two funerals at Brook Farm, during my time, and I think
there were no more afterward. A young woman named Williams came there
with incipient tuberculosis and after being tenderly cared for and made
as comfortable as possible for several months, peacefully passed away.
That was the only death. The deceased was buried with simple but
impressive services in a quiet nook at the far end of the pine woods.
This was the retired spot where the members of the community expected
to be interred when their labors in this world came to an end. That
expectation was not fulfilled. The Brook Farmers have nearly all joined
the congregation of the beyond, but they are sepulchred in the four
quarters of the globe. Theodore Parker’s monument is visited by
tourists in Italy. Captain John Steel made his last voyage to the port
of Hong Kong. John S. Dwight lies in Mount Vernon; Dr. and Mrs. Ripley
in Greenwood. The young couple who went to California never came back
and never will. Robert Shaw fell at Fort Sumter and shares a place in
the trenches with his men; and the battlefields of the South hold all
that was mortal of three others. Not one found final shelter under the
sod of Brook Farm.

The Rev. John Allen on resigning his pastorate to become a member of
our community, was detained for a time by the illness of his wife. When
she died he brought her remains for burial in the little cemetery among
the pines. This was the second funeral I witnessed, and I think there
were no others during the existence of the community.

Some years since I visited the old place with Dr. Codman, and, among
the other well remembered localities we sought out the place where we
had attended two funerals in the long-ago of our boyhood, but the
mementos of these two occasions were not to be found. During the war of
the Rebellion Brook Farm had been used as a convalescent camp, and many
of the sick and wounded were mustered out there by the last general
orders which we must all obey. Among the numberless soldiers’ graves it
was impossible to identify the two mounds for which we were looking.

As noted, the Phalanx had several of its members in the lecture field
to aid in forwarding the socialist movement. The cost of this
propaganda and the publication of _the Harbinger_, the Socialistic
organ, must have been a tax on the slender resources of the community,
but to make sacrifices for the great cause was quite in accordance with
the spirit of Brook Farm, and, so far as I know the burden was
cheerfully borne. The Rev. John Allen was one of those engaged in this
educational work and much of his time was given to it. He was
affectionately devoted to his motherless child, a charming little girl
of perhaps four years, and when the conditions favored he took her with
him on his lecturing tours. One evening he came home unexpectedly,
bringing the child as she was not feeling well, and leaving her in Mrs.
Rykeman’s care. The baby and I were dear friends, and, the next day,
she being confined to Mrs. Rykeman’s rooms, I spent the afternoon
trying to entertain her. Toward night, as she was evidently very sick,
a doctor was called in from Brookline. The physician examined the
little one and pronounced the dreadful verdict that we had on our hands
a case of virulent smallpox.

That was the beginning of the end. As Mrs. Ryekman and I had been
exposed to contagion, we were quarantined in her rooms and every
precaution was taken to prevent the spread of the disease. Neither Mrs.
Rykeman nor I had a single symptom of the disorder, but presently,
other cases appeared, one after another, and during the next few
months, the scourge ran through the community.

Thanks, no doubt, to the sturdy good health of our people, the invasion
by this enemy of mankind—and a terrible enemy the smallpox then was—did
not prove directly calamitous. The baby was the only one seriously
sick, and she made a rapid recovery, as indeed did all the others who
were attacked. There were not more than a dozen cases from first to
last and not one suffered much more than inconvenience, and not one had
a pit or spot such as the smallpox leaves to mark its victims.

After the first shock of surprise and alarm, the affliction was endured
without a murmur. It was a hard trial and we all knew it, but it was
borne with courage and equanimity as all trials and hardships were
borne by this high-souled company, imbued with the true spirit of Brook
Farm.

There were seldom more than two or three on the sick list at a
time—these, by the way, usually taking care of themselves or of each
other—and the rest of us went about the daily affairs of life very much
as though all was well with us. There was no more seclusion, and work
and study were presently resumed in regular order.

We were, however, shut off from communication with the outer world.
Gerrish left the mail and other things at the bridge, but he took
nothing away, as we were not allowed to send anything off the place. No
one could cross the brook from our side, and no one came to us from the
other side. That was a grievous misfortune, but it was not the worst.

The smallpox killed the school.

Several of the elder pupils fled on the first alarm, before we were
shut in, and these did not return. No others came to take the vacant
places and, presently, the higher classes were suspended. At the end of
the term the Brook Farm School was permanently closed.

This was the second step toward the final dissolution of the community.
Like unto the first, the second step was forced upon us as one of the
results following the return home of Mr. Allen’s stricken daughter.

How was it that such an affliction could have come to this poor
innocent little victim? No one ever knew. She was her father’s darling
and he watched over her with the most faithful care. He was obliged to
leave her during lecture hours but always in charge of trustworthy
friends. At no time, so far as he could find, had she been in danger of
contagion. Of course that danger might possibly have been incurred
without his knowledge, but another possibility was that the scourge
might have been visited upon us through her infection by malignant
design.

We knew there was bitter feeling against us among the old Puritans of
Roxbury. They hated us and took occasion to annoy and injure us in many
mean ways. Very little heed was given to these neighborly attentions
and very likely the matter would not have been thought of in connection
with the smallpox had that been all we had to suffer, but it was not.

When three mysterious fires occurred, one after another, destroying the
three principal houses on the domain, Pilgrim Hall, the Eyrie and the
Phalanstery, it was impossible to account for the origin of any of
them. Then it was that memory inevitably recalled manifestations of
hostility that could be accounted for with absolute certainty.

Pilgrim Hall was the main dormitory for pupils, a plain but substantial
structure, the first one erected for school purposes. The Phalanstery
was intended to be the home of the Phalanx. It was a comparatively
large and costly wooden building, with public rooms on the first floor
and accommodation for about one hundred and fifty people on the second
and third floors. To put up the Phalanstery was the biggest job
undertaken by the community and it taxed all available resources to the
last dollar. When nearly finished it was set on fire and burned to
ashes. This last loss bankrupted Brook Farm. There was no money left to
go on with, and the socialistic organization at West Roxbury had to be
abandoned. The Fourierite experiment was a failure. The joyous life of
the happy companions, grown so dear to each other, was ended. The
congenial company, united by such intimate ties was broken up. The
loving brothers and sisters said farewell to their trusted friends and
to their sunny home, going their widely separated ways, few of them
ever to meet again.

The failure of Brook Farm was rightly attributed to a succession of
inexplicable disasters. That was true as to direct causes, but it seems
apparent to-day that the Socialistic movement could not possibly have
been carried to ultimate success. The world was not ready to accept
Fourier’s theories far enough to abandon civilization and live the
Simple Life. The era of the millennium had not arrived. That era has
not yet arrived, for that matter, and while there are enthusiasts who
assure us the dawn of the glorious morning is almost within sight, we
others are not quite able to see it. There are not many of the
Socialists of 1840 now living, but the few of us left to those later
days have not much interest in the Socialistic dogmas now current. None
the less, we who can look back to the Socialism of the early times,
still cherish memories of Brook Farm as among the dearest this earth
affords.




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