From the Bottom Up Part 28

"LABORARE EST ORARE"

This I tacked to the block at the woodpile. We had one orator in the community--just one.

Next morning, when the motto stared him in the face, he said: "Gee whiz! that's great--Labour is oratory!" It was a blow at a venture in the interpretation of Latin and instead of wood to cook the breakfast we had a speech on the labour of the orator!

The idea that I was giving land away got noised abroad, and a thousand letters of inquiry came to me. Most of the inquirers asked if I gave "deeds" to the land.

Others got an idea that I had a cooperative colony and all they had to do was to come and plant themselves on the land. I never intended to organize a colony but I did invite some families to enjoy the summer on the farm.

I shall not ask as many next year for I have no talent as a manager and it takes more management than I imagined to look after even half a dozen families.

I had a number of parties from the city during the summer--the largest being from the Church of the Ascension and the Cosmopolitan Church.

From Ascension Church came a young men's club on Decoration day. I introduced the boys to their first experience in archery.

The people from the Cosmopolitan Church came on a Sunday and I took them over the hill to call on my friends, the Franciscan monks, of the society of the Atonement. The Franciscans are my nearest neighbours on the north and on the south is my neighbour Mr. Epstein, a Russian Jewish farmer.

From the north we have had an intellectual and moral fellowship and from the south the comradeship of the soil.

To Mr. Epstein's bull we are indebted for the element of excitement--a very necessary element if one could get it in any sort of orderly arrangement.

The bull objected to Mr. Epstein interfering in what might be called his (the bull's) family affairs. He tossed his owner into the air three times one afternoon in my meadow and, but for the timely interference of a dog, would have gathered the farmer to his fathers.

Several of our community saw the incident, but the vibrations had a more enervating effect than even those around the woodpile, and being armed only with the first law of nature they left the honours of the incident to the dog.

The following Sunday morning I saw a crowd in Mr. Epstein's orchard.

It looked like a small county fair. A cow doctor had been imported to perform an operation on the bull. Mr. Epstein and his muzik, Michael, almost came to blows in trying to decide which of them should put the yoke on the bull's neck. No decent farmer will stand aloof in such a crisis: so I threw my coat off and offered my services. The patient made serious objections to me, but permitted the yoke to be adjusted by a day labourer named Harvey Outhouse.

This Holstein aristocrat had a terrible come-down. He used to stalk around as if he owned the earth, but now he is a common "hewer of wood and drawer of water" like ourselves.

I see him occasionally, now, pulling a heavy load of stones or hay past our place as meekly and quiet as the dull ox by his side, and involuntarily I exclaim: "How are the mighty fallen!"

I have a horse and a cow. The artist of the community, who remains as one of my family, took charge of the cow and the care of the horse was distributed among the rest of us. The house is made comfortable and snug for the winter and I have settled down here for the remainder of my life.

With my family are these two comrades, the artist and the mechanic, and we are in complete harmony in work and ideals. I have been a gypsy most of my life. I am to have a respite now. Here in this corner of Putnam County I have found my happy hills of rest. My work will always be in the city but here my home is to me and here I am to do my writing, thinking, living. In the solitude of these woods I am to find inspiration and quiet, here I am to dream my dreams and see my visions. I am forty-seven years of age now, but I have the health and vigour of a boy and I feel that for me life has just really begun. I have but one ambition: it is not wealth, or fame, or even rest. It is to be of service to my fellow-men; for that is my highest conception of service to G.o.d.

This memoir is but a catalogue of events--a series of milestones that I have pa.s.sed. My life has been at times such a tempest and at other times such a calm, and between these extremes I have failed so often and my successes have been so phenomenal that the world would not believe a true recital of the facts, even though I were able to write them.

The conflicts of the soul, the scalding tears that bespeak the breaking heart, can not be reduced to print. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have written may be of encouragement to my fellow-travellers along the highway of life, especially men who mistakenly imagine they have been worsted in the fight.

There is a great truth in the doctrine of the economic interpretation of history but there is also truth, and a mighty truth, in the spiritual interpretation of life. The awakened human soul is indissolubly inknit with the warp and woof of things divine. It fights not alone, it is linked with G.o.d.

"No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him; there is always work And tools to work withal for those who will.

And blessed are the h.o.r.n.y hands of toil!

The busy world shoves angrily aside The man who stands with arms akimbo set, Until occasion tells him what to do; And he who waits to have his task worked out-- Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled."