A Woman of Yesterday

by Caroline Atwater Mason

CHAPTER XXIX

Canst drink the waters of the crispèd spring?

O sweet Content!

Swim’st thou in wealth, yet sink’st in thine own tears?

O Punishment!

Then he that patiently Want’s burden bears

No burden bears, but is a king, a king.

O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content!

Work apace, apace, apace, apace,

Honest labour bears a lovely face.

—Thomas Dekker, 1600.

A valley, two thousand feet above the sea level, narrowing at its upper or northern end to a ravine piercing thickly wooded hills, but widening gradually southward, until, a mile lower down the mountain stream which issues from the gorge, it becomes a broad sunny meadow land.

On a day in the middle of March, when the sun shone warm and a turquoise sky arched smiling over this valley, signs of human activity and energy prevailed on every side. In the bottom lands men were ploughing the broad level fields; here the river had been dammed, forming a pond, on the bank of which stood a large picturesque building sheathed with dark-green shingles. From the wide and open windows of this building the sound of whirring spindles and the joyous laughter of girls and men issued.

Higher up the valley men were at work building a light bridge of plank across the creek, while others were carting newly sawed lumber, with its strong pungent smell, from the sawmill below. On the eastern side of the valley, between this bridge and the mills half a mile south, were scattered or grouped at irregular intervals, forty or fifty small cabins, some of log, others of unplaned boards; thatched, or covered in red tile. Men and women were at work in the damp mould of the gardens by which these cabins were surrounded, and fresh green things were shooting up. On the opposite side of the stream, on a wooded knoll, stood a large, low, barrack-like building with a red roof, and near it a few cabins. It was opposite this group of buildings that the foot-bridge was in process of making, to supersede a single plank and rail which had hitherto connected the banks of the stream. Down the valley from this small and separate settlement stretched fields already under cultivation, for corn, potatoes, and cotton.

There were no streets in this rustic settlement. Footpaths led to the cottage doors through the thin, coarse grass, and along the eastern side of the little river; and between its bank and the houses ran a rough wagon road, deeply rutted now by the wheels of the lumber wagons in the soft, red soil. To the north and east the hills rose abruptly, covered with oak and pine, and the aromatic fragrance of the latter was in the air, mingling with the scent of the soil. Beyond the lower hills to the west loomed the shoulders of dim, blue mountains, while looking south, down the shining river, beyond a belt of woodland, the valley broadened out to the sunny plain stretching to the horizon line.

The limpid clearness of the air, the fragrance of the forest and the earth, the musical flow of the little river, the wonderful brilliancy of the sky, with the vast uplift of the mountains, gave a sense of wild perfection to the ensemble. Such was Fraternia in the morning of its second spring.

It was during that decade which saw the sudden springing into life of so large a number of communistic organizations and settlements throughout the country, mainly in the south and west. Many of these experiments were crude and obscure; most of them were shortlived. They were founded on widely different social conceptions, ranging from those of unlimited license and rank anarchism up to the high ideals of the life of Christian brotherhood set forth in the early church.

The latter was the foundation of John Gregory’s colony in Fraternia. Inflexible morality and blamelessness of Christian living were his cardinal laws. Built upon them was the superstructure of economic and social equality, of labour sharing, and of domestic simplicity.

Thus far unusual promise attended the adventure, and peace and good will reigned in the little community.

Toward the upper end of the village half a dozen men were at work around a circular excavation not more than five or six feet in diameter, which had been lined with irregular slabs and blocks of stone patched together with clay. In blue overalls thickly bespattered with red mud and the sticky clay, a man was working on his knees at the edge of this basin. It was Keith Burgess. Near him, measuring with rule and line and marking out the width of the coping, stood the artist, Pierce Everett. Their fellow-workmen were two Irishmen—big, active fellows, with honest eyes—and a wiry little black-a-vised Jew, a quondam foreman in a New York sweat-shop. He was mixing clay and laying the stone of the coping, while the Irishmen were at work in an open trench through which ran the pipe which was to conduct the water from a spring in the ravine above into the new reservoir.

Emerging from the woods below the dam a little crowd of children came straying up the valley, laughing and shouting, and jumping gayly over the pools of red mud in the road. Their hands were full of wild flowers,—bloodroot, and anemones, and arbutus; their hair was blown about in the wind; their eyes were shining. Among them, giving her hand to a little girl who walked with a crutch, walked Anna Burgess, her face as joyous as theirs, and a free, unhampered vigour and grace in every line of her figure. She was the head teacher in the village school, and was known to her scholars, and, indeed, quite generally in the little community, as “Sister Benigna.”

This name, “Benigna,” which had come down in Anna’s family for generations, and had been given her as a second name, had not been used for many years, save by her mother, who still clung loyally to the full “Anna Benigna.” Who it was in Fraternia who had revived the beautiful old Moravian name was not known, but the use of it had been quickly established, especially among the children and the foreign folk.

The habit of using “Brother” and “Sister” with the given name in ordinary social intercourse was common, although not universal, in Fraternia. Anna’s assistants in the school—a pale, little English governess, who had apparently never known stronger food than tea and bread until she came to Fraternia, and a rosy-cheeked German kindergartner—were among the little flock, their hands overflowing with wild flowers, and their faces with the high delight the spring day brought them. It was Saturday morning, and a holiday.

Suddenly there was a shout from some boys who were foremost in the company, and they came scampering back to Anna exclaiming that the “fountain” was almost finished, and, perhaps, the water would soon be turned into it. By common consent the whole party hastened on and soon encircled the workmen at the basin with noisy questions and merry chatter. It was to be so fine not to have to go up to the spring in the ravine with pails and pitchers any more. Could they surely have the water here for Sunday? Then Fräulein Frieda told them how the girls in her country came to such fountains with their jugs, and carried them away full on their heads. She showed them with a tin pail, found lying in the clay, just how it was done, walking away with firm, balanced step, the pail unsupported on her pretty flaxen-haired head, on which the sun shone dazzlingly. The little girls were greatly delighted, and all declared they should learn to carry their water pots home on their heads from the Quelle, as Fräulein Frieda called it.

Anna stood at the edge of the basin, Keith at her feet, on his knees, with the trowel in his hands, smiling up at her, the little lame girl still at her side, a trace of wistfulness in her eyes as she watched the others.

“We will not carry our water pails on our heads, you and I, will we, little Judith?” Anna asked, kind and motherly. “We want our brains to grow, and it might crowd them down; don’t you think so?”

The swarthy Jew looked up from the clay he was mixing with quick, instinctive gratitude. Judith was his child. He grinned a broad and rather hideous grin, and exclaimed in a broken dialect:—

“Das ist so, Kleine; shust listen to our lady! She knows. She says it right.”

Pierce Everett’s dark eyes flashed with sudden enthusiasm. Turning to Anna he bowed profoundly and said low to Keith, as well as to her:—

“There you have it! Barnabas has found your title—‘our lady’!”

Anna looked into Everett’s dark eager eyes with her quiet smile, and was about to speak, when a sudden noise of grating and rattling and horses’ hoofs behind them caused them all three to turn and look down the river. A horse and stone drag were approaching rapidly, driven by John Gregory, who stood on the drag, which was loaded with big clean pebbles from the river-bed. He wore a coarse grey flannel shirt, the collar turned off a little at the throat, and rough grey trousers tucked into high rubber boots, which reached to the thighs. The cloth cap on his head with its vizor bore a certain resemblance to a helmet, and altogether the likeness of the whole appearance to that of a Roman warrior in his chariot did not escape the three friends who watched its approach in the motley crowd around the basin.

Gregory drove his drag close up to the edge of the coping, now nearly laid, greeted the company with a courteous removal of his hat and a cordial Good-morning, then discharged the load of pebbles in a glinting heap on the soft red earth.

There was no conscious assumption of mastery or direction in Gregory’s manner, nothing could have been simpler or more democratic than the impartial comradery with which he joined the others, nevertheless the sense that the master was among them was instantly communicated throughout the little group. Up in the trench, nearly to the base of the cliffs which marked the entrance to the ravine, one Irishman said to the other, in a tone of satisfaction not unmixed with good-natured sarcasm:—

“Himsilf’s come now. The gintlemin masons will git to rights or they’ll lose their job, d’ye mind, Patrick?”

“Oh, ay,” said the other, “an’ the same to yersilf, if ye ivir noticed it.”

There was a little silence even among the chattering children as Gregory stooped by Everett’s side, pulled up with the ease of mighty muscle two or three stones, took the trowel from Keith’s hand and a hod of mortar from the waiting Barnabas, and set the stones over on a truer line, laughing the while with the men and turning aside the edge of criticism with frank self-disparagement, as being himself but a tyro.

A curious consequence of Gregory’s appearance on the scene after this sort, was the dwarfed effect of the men around him, who suddenly seemed to have shrunk in stature and proportions, and whose motions, beside the virile force and confident freedom of his, appeared incompetent and weak.

Anna had drawn back from her place near the basin’s edge. Gregory had not looked at her nor she at him directly. In fact, they habitually, for some reason they themselves could not define, avoided each other, and yet could not avoid a piercing consciousness, when together, of every look and word of the other. A sudden shyness and subduing had fallen instantly upon Anna’s bright mood, and, while the others watched every look and motion of Gregory with almost breathless interest, she stood apart and arranged little Judith’s flowers with apparent preoccupation.

Tossing the trowel back to Keith, with whom he exchanged a few words of question, Gregory next hastened with long strides up the line of the trench to the place where the Irishmen were at work. Here was a primitive moss-grown trough, into which the water of the spring had hitherto been conducted, and to which all the people had been obliged to come for their supply of drinking water. The new iron pipe already replaced the rude wooden conduit which had done duty until now, but the water still flowed into the trough, and would do so until, the basin completed, the connection might be made between the two sections of pipe.

Under Gregory’s direction this was now effected, and the water of the spring, if there was no flaw, should now flow unimpeded into the basin below. To test the basin, it was Gregory’s purpose to make the experiment at once.

Presently there was a shout, exulting and joyous, from the company below.

“The water is here! The water! The water!” rose the cry into the stillness of the valley. The men at work upon the bridge left their work, and hastened to join the little crowd.

With strides even longer than before, Gregory came down again, the Irishmen following him in a scramble to keep up. Joy was in all their faces, and the deepest joy of all in that of Gregory. They stood together and watched the jet of water as it sprang from the mouth of the pipe, turbid at first, but gradually becoming clear and sparkling, and fell with a gentle, musical plashing into the stone fountain. There was complete silence for a little space, as they looked intently at the increasing depth of the gathering pool, and then, bringing down his hands with a will on the shoulders of Keith and Everett, Gregory exclaimed:—

“Men, you have done well, all of you! It holds, do you see? It is tight as a ship. Hurrah!”

They all joined in a great cheer, and then, swiftly finding where she stood, or knowing, as he always seemed to know, instinctively, Gregory’s eyes sought Anna Burgess.

“Will Sister Benigna come up here?” he asked quietly, with the unhesitating steadiness of the man who knows just what he means to do.

Anna came slowly forward, and stood on the new-laid coping, by the side of Gregory, greatly wondering. Just beyond her was Keith, side by side with Barnabas Rosenblatt. Meanwhile, Gregory had taken from his pocket a small folding drinking cup of shining metal, which he had held in the flow of the spring water until it was thoroughly purified. Turning now to look at all those who stood round about, he said:—

“Brothers, sisters, little children, this water is the good gift of God. Let this fountain be now consecrated to all pure and holy uses. By the wish which I believe to be in every one of you, let the first who shall drink of this living water from the new fountain be our Sister Benigna.”

With these words Gregory filled the cup from the sparkling outgush of the spring, the water so cold that the polished cup was covered with frosty dimness, and with simple seriousness handed it to Anna. Affection and reverence were in the eyes of all the people as they watched her while with uncovered head, calm brow, and the fine simplicity of unconsciousness she took the cup and drank. But with the first touch of her lips to the cup the hand in which she held it trembled; and when she drained the last drop, it trembled still. As Anna stepped back, having drunk, into the ranks, Gregory lifted his hand, and with the gesture which commands devotion repeated the ancient words,—

“‘O most high, almighty, good Lord God, to thee belong praise, glory, honour, and all blessing!

“‘Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for air and cloud, calms and all weather, by the which thou upholdest in life all creatures.

“‘Praised be my Lord for our sister, water, who is very serviceable unto us, and humble, and precious, and clear.’”

Then with a deeper solemnity and significance in face and voice, he continued:—

“‘If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him and he would have given thee living water.’

“‘Jesus said, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.’”

It was noon, and turning they all dispersed, each to his own place, a deepened gladness in their faces. But as for Anna Burgess, a dimness was upon her joy, a thrilling undercurrent of dread and wonder which she could not understand; for she had drunk of the Cup of Trembling—and knew it not.