Part 27 (2/2)

”How can one invent anything in this slave age?” he asked, as he glared at us between the curling puffs of smoke.

”That's true,” we said, and piped down.

He went over to the well to get a drink. The housekeeper called for firewood. He smiled--he was a jolly good-natured chap.

”Keep cool, comrades,” he said gently, ”it'll be all the same in a thousand years!” The axe was blunt. He took it to the grindstone--a new patent, with a bicycle seat on it, and there he sat puffing and grinding until a neighbour's cow broke into our corn. He dropped the axe and went after the cow.

The housekeeper kept calling for wood. Another comrade was pressed into the killing ether and he smashed and hacked for five minutes; then he straightened himself up and, said, with a look of disgust on his face, ”That's a mucker's job!”

”Who will be the muckers under Socialism?” I asked mildly.

”The dull, brainless clods who can do nothing else!” he said.

Just then our neighbour's hired man, a Russian muzik, pa.s.sed with his ox-team. He wore a smock of his own making and a pair of shoes he had made of hickory bark.

”That,” said the comrade at the block in a stage whisper, ”is the type that will do the rough work. You couldn't wake that thing up with a plug of dynamite!”

We watched Michael and his ox-team as they lumbered lazily along the lane.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Happy Hollow” in the Winter, Looking From the House]

We had one poet in our midst--just one. He had lately completed a poem on the glories of our valley. Two men stooped to pick up the axe.

Gaston and Alphonse like, they stooped together. As they did so the poet came along with a beaming face. ”Stop!” he said; ”listen, boys, listen.”

We all straightened up, and stood at attention. He read:

”Not far from turmoil, strife, the mountain-vying waves Of life's antagonisms that delude the world-- Amidst elysian valleys, slopes, majestic hills and caves That mark the path where ages wrought their wrath and hurled The crumbling sinews of the soil down to defeat, To linger in the depth as symbols that all power Is at the will of the Supreme--in this retreat, Filled with the chirping music of the nightly hour, And seeking rest from joyous toil, reward for which Is given by the thought that all is mine, that none Do rob, that love adds to each stroke its rich And sweetening cheer: In such rare world that I have won----”

The housekeeper rudely broke the spell!

”You comrades had better eat that poetry for dinner,” she said.

We all looked and all understood--all save the poet. He looked aghast, thinking in Yiddish.

”Go on,” somebody said, but the poet was a sensitive youth and could sense an atmosphere quicker than most of us.

”Wood,” said the housekeeper, pointing at the few sticks lying around the block.

”Ah,” exclaimed the poet as he took up the axe, ”you shall have it, comrade--have it good and plenty.”

He laid the poem in the white birch frame against a stone and proceeded. We moved away, every man to his own place.

In a community where the communers have to chop the fire-wood, canned salmon is a good standby.

That day we had salmon for dinner.

Just as a matter of encouragement I had the artist of the community print a Latin motto in fine Gothic characters:

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