Meanwhile the petty, local fight had started which was to disrupt this hope of Barton's, and thwart its fulfillment forever.
The town of Andersonville became jealous of the town of Cottswold because the latter handled most of the mail of our city and thereby had achieved the position of third or fourth class postoffice—I don't know exactly which.
The struggle commenced when the two lone policemen of Andersonville began to arrest us—men and women—when we walked into their town for provisions, clad in our bathing suits ... later on, we were forbidden to run for exercise, in our bathing suits, on the fine, macadamised road that passed not far from our dwellings ... it shocked the motorists.
Yet people came from far and near, just to be shocked. That seems to be the chief, most delightful, and only lawfully indulged emotion of the Puritan.
Barton summoned us to a meeting, one night, and we held a long palaver over the situation. We decided to become more cautious, in spite of a few hotheads who advised defiance to the hilt....
And the beautiful girl that possessed such fine breasts could no longer row about on our little lake, naked to the waist. And we were requested to go far in among the trees for our nude sun-baths.
The more radical of us moved entirely into the woods, despite the sand flies....
Then the affair simmered down to quietness—till the New York World and the New York Journal sent out their reporters.... After that, what with the lurid and insinuating stories printed, the state authorities began to look into the matter—and found no harm in us.
But the Andersonville officials were out for blood. Cottswold was growing too fast for their injured civic pride and vanity.
"Can't you divide your mail between the two towns, and make them both third or fourth class or whatever-it-is postoffice towns?" I asked Barton, after he had given me the simple explanation of the whole affair.