“Oh, people’ll laugh,” said Uncle David. “People does a heap o’ laughing in this world without makin’ it one mite merrier for anybody. I like laughing myself. It’s awful good an’ satisfyin’ to have a real square laugh, but t’aint that sort. Mos’ folks’ laugh hain’t got no more fun in it than the laugh of a hoot-owl. I’d a heap sight rather have none at all. You ain’t agoin’ to mind that sort, I hope?” Uncle David spoke with a shade of anxiety in his manner.
“Oh no, I’m not thin-skinned,” said Olive with a superior smile.
“Some folks is made that way. When they have found a tender spot in anybody they can’t rest no how till they’ve stuck some sort o’ pin into it.”
“Tell me, does everything belong to everybody generally out here? It is so puzzling. This house, for instance, is it ours or yours or everybody’s?” asked Olive.
“The land an’ the horses an’ the cattle an’ waggons was mostly bought with community-money, that is Madame, she gave the money, she’s rich you know, an’ she’s generous and always givin’ to the Community, her whole heart is in it. But Ezry worked a heap on this house, he mostly built it all, an’ it’s his, an’ t’other folks’ houses are theirs. That’s Brother Wright’s over yonder, an’ that’s our house beside the ’Cademy, most everybody worked to get it up and fix it comfortable for Madame. Old Mrs. Ruby, she lives to herself in the log cabin we bought from Weddell, we had it moved there a purpose over from the Gully, ’cause she liked to live beside the spring so as to get her water handy. She had a little mite of money which we used in buyin’ stock.”
“So you do have some things as private property, just like ordinary people,” observed Olive.
“Of course. It would not be any sort o’ use to have everything in common, ’cause folks’ notions don’t always ’xactly suit. An’ what we want is to have everybody free, so they can be perfectly happy here. We don’t want to have no strife, an’ no jealousy, an’ no ill feeling one towards another. But there can’t be community in all things. What sort o’ use would it be for you an’ me to have community o’ boots an’ shoes?” said Uncle David with a great laugh, sticking out his enormous foot towards where Olive’s dainty little slipper peeped from beneath her dress.
“Your shoes, my dear, wouldn’t go on my two fingers, an’ mine ’ud be big enough to make a tol’eble boat for you. There couldn’t be community in shoes, so there ain’t none. But with the lan’ it’s different. We all work that for the benefit of everybody, there ain’t no strugglin’ to be fust an’ get ahead o’ one another. We are all brothers at Perfection City.”
Olive was full of excitement when Ezra came back at sun-down.
“Just fancy, I’ve had my first visitor,” she said as she stood beside her husband while he was watering the horses.