Part 5 (1/2)
Mr. Pratt and his family left Brook Farm when the a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sume 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 Sat.u.r.days were half-holidays not only for the school but for the entire community. On Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day 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 s.p.a.cious 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 circ.u.mstance 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 gla.s.s 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 h.o.a.rd 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 a.s.sociation 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 s.h.i.+fter, 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 a.s.sembly 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 fas.h.i.+oned 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 pa.s.sed 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 Pa.s.sover means to Israel.