"Yours, T."
CHAPTER V.
THE RUSH AND HUM OF LIFE AND WORK.
The departure from the ordinary mode of living initiated at the farm seemed to stir up every curious, investigating and odd mortal, from one end of the country to the other, and they all wanted to visit the place. At first they were made welcome to the table, and to what there was to spare of the members' time, but when their name was "legion" the Board of Government found it necessary to exact a fee for meals. This did not diminish them; the cry was "Still they come!" Men, women and children were passing from Hive to Eyry on every pleasant day from May to November, and over the farm, back to the Hive, where they took private carriage or public coach for their departure. Among these people were some of the oddest of the odd; those who rode every conceivable hobby; some of all religions; bond and free; transcendental and occidental; antislavery and proslavery; come-outers, communists, fruitists and flutists; dreamers and schemers of all sorts.
The number of notable persons who visited the farm at this period was large. I was too young to appreciate the positions they held, in literature, the church or the nation, but append a list of names, selected almost at random, mostly of distinguished persons who were occasional visitors. Horace Greeley, Parke Godwin, Henry James, Freeman Hunt, Charles Kraitsir, Henry Giles, S. P. Andrews, all of New York; Rev. O. A. Brownson, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Rev. Henry A. Miles, Rev. Edward E. Hale, Rev. Samuel Osgood, Rev. Frederick T. Gray, Rev. A. B. Green, Rev. C. A. Greenleaf, Hon. John G. Palfrey, Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar, Hon. George H. Calvert, of Newport, R. I.; Hon. Charles Sumner, Judge Ellis Gray Loring, Judge Wells, Dr. W. F. Channing, R. H. Dana, A. Bronson Alcott, George B. Emerson, Samuel G. Ward,—Marcus Spring and Edmund Tweedy, of New York; James A. Kay, of Philadelphia. W. W. Story, C. P. Cranch, E. Hicks, Joseph and Thomas Carew, John Sartain, John A. Ordway and Benjamin Champney, were among the many artists who came; the major portion of all the above named persons were from New England.
It will not do to forget young and curly-headed John A. Andrew, who became the war governor of Massachusetts, or Robert Owen, the English communist, well known for his social experiments at New Harmony, Ind., who, at this time, was a ruddy-faced, almost white-haired person, with a large nose, and carrying well his seventy years on a vigorous frame.
George R. Russell, Francis G. Shaw and Theodore Parker, with their wives and members of their families, were very friendly visitors.
There were numerous ladies, also, who came. I remember Miss A. P.
Peabody, Pauline Wright, Mary Gove and sweet Lydia Maria Child, of New
York.
The old record book that lay in the reception room at the Hive would reveal a list of four thousand names, registered in one year, to select from, but alas! it is lost forever.
A. Bronson Alcott came one day and brought his friend Lane, who was anxious to visit the "Community," but Lane was opposed to eating anything that was killed or had died, so he ate neither fish nor flesh. Neither would he wear wool, because it was an animal product, for he did not like animal products. Neither would he wear cotton nor use sugar nor rice, because they were the products of slave labor. And finally, he walked from Boston in a linen suit, because he would avoid using a horse, for his argument was that the value of time spent in providing food, lodging and care of animals, was not returned to the owners for the outlay. Lane came from England, and was not a "Yankee crank," as some might possibly think.