"Say, Joe, you"re jokin",--hev you really got one?"
"You can look for yourselves."
"I saw one go through here "bout six o"clock," interrupted a new-comer. "Great Jehosephat, but "t went like a streak of greased lightnin"."
"War that your"n, Joe?"
"Well--"
"Naw," said the new-comer, scornfully. "Joe ain"t got no aut"mobile; there"s the feller in there now who runs it," and the crowd turned my way with such interest that I turned to the little table and wrote the despatch, quite losing the connection of the subdued murmurs outside; but it was quite evident from the broken exclamations that my host was filling the populace up with information interesting inversely to its accuracy.
"Mile a minute--faster"n a train--Holy Moses! what"s that, Joe?
broke axle--telegraphed--how many--four more--you don"t say so?-- what"s his name? I"ll bet it"s Vanderbilt. Don"t you believe it-- it costs money to run one of those machines. I"ll bet he"s a dandy from "way back--stopping at your house--bridal chamber--that"s right--you want to kill the fatted calf for them fellers--say--"
But further comments were cut short as I came out, jumped in, and we drove back to a good supper by candle-light.
The stars were shining over head, the air was clear and crisp, down in the valley of Lebanon the mist was falling, and it was cool that night. Lulled by the monotonous song of the tree-toad and the deep ba.s.s croaking of frogs by the distant stream, we fell asleep.
There was nothing to do next day. The new steering-head could not possibly arrive until the morning following. As the farm was worked by a tenant, our host had little to do, and proposed that we drive to the Shaker village a few miles beyond.
The visit is well worth making, and we should have missed it entirely if the automobile had not broken down, for the new State road over the mountain does not go through the village, but back of it. From the new road one can look down upon the cl.u.s.ter of large buildings on the side of the mountain, but the old roads are so very steep, with such interesting names as "Devil"s Elbow," and the like, that they would not tempt an automobile. Many with horses get out and walk at the worst places.
One wide street leads through the settlement; on each side are the huge community buildings, seven in all, each occupied by a "family," so called, or community, and each quite independent in its management and enterprises from the others; the common ties being the meeting-house near the centre and the school-house a little farther on.
We stopped at the North Family simply because it was the first at hand, and we were hungry. Ushered into a little reception-room in one of the outer buildings, we were obliged to wait for dinner until the party preceding us had finished, for the little dining-room devoted to strangers had only one table, seating but six or eight, and it seemed to be the commendable policy of the inst.i.tution to serve each party separately.
A printed notice warned us that dinner served after one o"clock cost ten cents per cover extra, making the extravagant charge of sixty cents. We arrived just in time to be ent.i.tled to the regular rate, but the dilatory tactics of the party in possession kept us beyond the hour and involved us in the extra expense, with no compensation in the shape of extra dishes. Morally and--having tendered ourselves within the limit--legally we were ent.i.tled to dine at the regular rate, or the party ahead should have paid the additional tariff, but the good sister could not see the matter in that light, plead ignorance of law, and relied entirely upon custom.
The man who picks up a Shaker maiden for a fool will let her drop.
Having waited until nearly famished, the sister blandly told us, as if it were a matter of local interest, but otherwise of small consequence, that the North Family were strict vegetarians, serving no meat whatsoever; the only meat family was at the other end of the village.
We were ready for meat, for chickens, ducks, green goose, anything that walked on legs; we were not ready for pumpkin, squash, boiled potatoes, canned peas, and cabbage; but a theory as well as a condition confronted us; it was give in or move on. We gave in, but for fifteen cents more per plate bargained for preserves, maple syrup, and honey,--for something cloying to deceive the outraged palate.
But that dinner was a revelation of what a good cook can do with vegetables in season; it was the quintessence of delicacy, the refinement of finesse, the veritable apotheosis of the kitchen garden; meat would have been brutal, the intrusion of a chop inexcusable, the a.s.sertion of a steak barbarous, even a terrapin would have felt quite out of place amidst things so fragrant and impalpable as the marvellous preparations of vegetables from that wonderful Shaker kitchen.
Everything was good, but the various concoctions of sweet corn were better; and such sweet corn! it is still a savory recollection.
Then the variety of preserves, jellies, and syrups; fifteen cents extra were never bestowed to better advantage. We cast our coppers upon the water and they returned Spanish galleons laden with good things to eat.
After dining, we were walked through the various buildings, up stairs and down, through kitchens, pantries, and cellars,--a wise exercise after so bountiful a repast. In the cellar we drank something from a bottle labelled "Pure grape juice," one of those non-alcoholic beverages with which the teetotaler whips the devil around the stump; another gla.s.s would have made Shakers of us all, for the juice of the grape in this instance was about twenty-five per cent. proof. If the good sisters supply their worthy brothers in faith with this stimulating cordial, it is not unlikely that life in the village is less monotonous than is commonly supposed.
It certainly was calculated to add emphasis to the eccentricities of even a "Shaking Quaker."
Although the oldest and the wealthiest of all the socialistic communities, there are only about six thousand Shakers in the United States, less than one-fourth of what there were in former times.
At Mt. Lebanon, the first founded of the several societies in this country, there are seven families, or separate communities, each with its own home and buildings. The present membership is about one hundred and twenty, nearly all women,--scarcely enough men to provide the requisite deacons for each family.
Large and well-managed schools are provided to attract children from the outside world, and so recruit the diminishing ranks of the faithful; but while many girls remain, the boys steal away to the heathen world, where marriage is an inst.i.tution.
Celibacy is the cardinal principle and the curse of Shakerism; it is slowly but surely bringing the sect to an end. It takes a lot of fanaticism to remain single, and fanaticism is in the sere and yellow leaf. In Ma.s.sachusetts, where so many women are compelled to remain single, there ought to be many Shakers; there are a few, and Mt. Lebanon is just over the line.
Celibacy does not appeal strongly to men. A man is quite willing to live alone if it is not compulsory, but celibates cannot stand restraint; the bachelor is bound to have his own way--until he is married. Tell a man he may not marry, and he will; that he must marry, and he won"t.
The sect which tries to get along with either too little or too much marriage is bound to peter out. There were John Noyes and Brigham Young. John founded the Oneida Community upon the proposition that everything should be in common, including husbands, wives, and children; from the broadest possible communism his community has regenerated into the closet of stock companies "limited," with a capital stock of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a surplus of one hundred and fifty thousand, and only two hundred and nineteen stockholders.
In the palmy days of Mormonism the men could have as many wives as they could afford,--a scheme not without its practical advantages in the monotonous life of pioneer settlements, since it gave the women something to quarrel about and the men something to think about, thereby keeping both out of mischief,--but with the advent of civilization with its diverse interests, the men of Salt Lake, urged also by the law, are getting tired of more than one wife at a time, and the community will soon be absorbed and lost in the commonplace. The ancient theory of wives in multiples is giving place to the modern practice of wives in series.
The story is told that a dear Shaker brother once fell from grace and disappeared in the maelstrom of the carnal world; in a few years he came back as penitent as he was penniless, with strange accounts of how men had fleeced him of all he possessed save the clothes--none too desirable--on his back. Men were so scarce that the credulous sisters and charitable deacons voted to accept his tales as true and receive him once more into the fold.
It was in 1770, while in prison in England, that Ann Lee claimed to have had a great revelation concerning original sin, wherein it was revealed that a celibate life is a condition precedent to spiritual regeneration. Her revelation may have been biased by the fact that she herself was married, but not comfortably.
In 1773, on her release from prison, another revelation told her to go to America. Her husband did not sympathize with the celibacy proposition, left "Mother Ann," as she was then known, and went off with another woman who was unhampered by revelations. This was the beginning of desertions which have continued ever since, until the men are reduced to a corporal"s guard.
The principles of the Shakers, barring celibacy, are sound and practical, and, so far as known, they live up to them quite faithfully. Like the original Oneida community, they believe in free criticism of one another in open meetings. They admit no one to the society unless he or she promises to make a full confession before others of every evil that can be recalled,--women confess to women, men to men; these requirements make it difficult to recruit their ranks. They are opposed to war and violence, do not vote, and do not permit corporal punishment. They pay their full share of public taxes and a.s.sessments and give largely in charity.
Their buildings are well built and well kept, their farms and lands worked to the best advantage; in short, they are industrious and thrifty.
Communism is one of those dreams that come so often to the best of mankind and, lingering on through the waking hours, influence conduct. The sharp distinctions and inequalities of life seem so harsh and unjust; the wide intervals which separate those who have from those who have not seem so unfair, that in all ages and in all countries men have tried to devise schemes for social equality,--equality of power, opportunity, and achievement.
Communism of some sort is one solution urged,--communism in property, communism in effort, communism in results, everything in common.
In 1840 Emerson wrote to Carlyle, "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket. I am gently mad myself, and am resolved to live cleanly. George Ripley is talking up a colony of agriculturists and scholars, with whom he threatens to take the field and book. One man renounces the use of animal food; another of coin; and another of domestic hired service; and another of the State; and on the whole we have a commendable share of reason and of hope."
Ripley did found his Brook Farm, and a lot of good people went and lived there--not Emerson; he was just a trifle too sane to be won over completely, but even he used to go into his own garden and dig in a socialistic way until his little boy warned him not to dig his foot.
That is the trouble with communism, those who dig are apt to dig their feet. It is easier to call a spade a spade than to use one.
Men may be born free and equal, but if they are, they do not show it. From his first breath man is oppressed by the conditions of his existence, and life is a struggle with environment. Freedom and liberty are terms of relative not absolute value. The absolutism of the commune is oppression refined, each man must dig even if he digs his own foot. The plea of the anarchist for liberty is more consistent than the plea of the communist,--the one does demand a wild, lawless freedom for individual initiative; the other demands the very refinement of interference with liberty of mind and body.
The evolutionist looks on with philosophic indifference, knowing that what is to be will be, that the stream of tendency is not to be checked or swerved by vaporings, but moves irresistibly onward, though every thought, every utterance, every experiment, however wild, however visionary, has its effect.
We of the practical world sojourning in the Shaker village may commiserate the disciples of theory, but they are happy in their own way,--possibly happier in their seclusion and routine than we are in our hurly-burly and endless strife for social, commercial, and political advantages. Life is as settled and certain for them as it is unsettled and uncertain for us. No problems confront them; the everlasting query, "What shall we do to-morrow?" is never asked; plans for the coming summer do not disturb them; the seash.o.r.e is far off; Paris and Monte Carlo are but places, vague and indistinct, the fairy tales of travellers; their city is the four walls of their home; their world the one long, silent, street of the village; their end the little graveyard beyond; it is all planned out, foreseen, and arranged.
Such a life is not without its charms, and it is small wonder that in all ages men of intellect have sought in some form of communistic a.s.sociation relief from the pressure of strenuous individualism. We may smile with condescension upon the busy sisters in their caps and gingham gowns, but, who knows, theirs may be the better lot.
Life with us is a good deal of an automobile race,--a lot of dust, dirt, and noise; explosions, accidents, and delays; something wrong most of the time; now a burst of headlong speed, then a jolt and sudden stop; or a creeping pace with disordered mechanism; no time to think of much except the machine; less time to see anything except the road immediately ahead; strife to pa.s.s others; reckless indifference to life and limb; one long, mad contest for success and notoriety, ending for the most part in some sort of disaster,--possibly a sea of flame.
If we possessed any sense of grim, sardonic humor, we would appreciate how ridiculous is the life we lead, how utterly absurd is our waste of time, our dissipation of the few days and hours vouchsafed us. We are just so many cicadas drumming out the hours and disappearing. We have abundance of wit, and a good deal of humor of a superficial kind, but the penetrating vision of a Socrates, a Voltaire, a Carlyle is denied the most of us, and we take ourselves and our accustomed pursuits most seriously.
On our way back from the village we stopped at the birthplace of Samuel Tilden,--an old-fashioned white frame house, situated in the very fork of the roads, and surrounded by tall trees. Not far away is the cemetery, where a stone sarcophagus contains the remains of a man who was very able if not very great.
Probably not fifty people in the United States, aside from those living in the neighborhood, know where Tilden was born. We did not until we came abruptly upon the house and were told; probably not a dozen could tell exactly where he is buried. Such is fame. And yet this man, in the belief of most of his countrymen, was chosen president, though never seated; he was governor of New York and a vital force in the politics and public life of his times,--now forgotten.
What a disappointment it must have been to come so near and yet miss the presidency. Before 1880 came around, his own party had so far forgotten him that he was scarcely mentioned for renomination,--though Tilden decrepit was incomparably stronger than Hanc.o.c.k "the superb." It was hard work enthusing over "Hanc.o.c.k and Hooray" after "Tilden and Reform;" the latter cry had substance, the former was just fustian.
The Democratic party is as iconoclastic as the Republican is reverential. The former loves to pick flaws in its idols and dash them to pieces; the latter, with stolid conservatism, clings loyally to its mediocrities. The latter could have elected Bryan, the former could not; the Democratic stomach is freaky and very squeamish; it swallows many things but digests few; the ostrich-like Republican organ has never been known to reject anything.
Republicans swear stanchly** by every president they have ever elected. Democrats abandoned Tilden and spurned Cleveland, the only two men they have come within a thousand miles of electing in ten campaigns. The lesson of well-nigh half a century makes no impression, the blind are leading the blind.
It is a far cry from former leaders such as Tilden, Hewitt, Bayard, and Cleveland to those of to-day; a party which seeks its candidate among the populists of Nebraska courts defeat. The two nominations of Bryan mark low level in the political tide; it is not conceivable that a great political party could sink lower; for less of a statesman and more of a demagogue does not exist. The one great opportunity the little man had to show some ability as a leader was when the treaty of Paris was being fiercely debated at Washington; the sentiment of his party and the best men of the country were against the purchase of the Philippines; but this cross-roads politician, who could not see beyond the tip of his nose, hastened to Washington, played into the hands of the jingoes by persuading the wiser men of his own party--men who should not have listened to him--to withdraw their opposition.