Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the first members to join the community and was one of the first to leave it. He thought he could do better than to spend his time and energy in digging over a manure-pile with a dung fork. Do better he certainly did, for himself and for the world.
I have been asked more than once if the illustrious, poetic and romantic Hawthorne did actually feed the pigs at Brook Farm. My answer is that I do not know as I was not there during his residency, but I think he did not, my reason for thinking he did not being that there were no pigs to feed. The suggestion may have arisen from a passage in his Notes when he speaks of going out with Rev. John Allen to buy a litter of pigs. Minot Pratt, our head farmer, had some sort of interest in a place across the brook, and there may have been a pig-pen there, but if there was one on our place it was unknown to sharp-eyed youngsters who knew every rabbit-run in the woods, and every swallow’s hole in the sand banks. Many of the farmers were vegetarians and most of them had a Hebraic aversion to pork. That viand was never seen on the table except with the baked beans always served on Sunday; Mother Rykeman managing to keep on hand a supply of middlings for the bean-pot.
Hawthorne cherished kindly memories of Brook Farm and these memories embodied in the Blithedale Romance show his warm and appreciative interest in the life of the community. I fail to find anything like the portrait-painting which others have discovered in the delineations of Blithedale characters. There are personal traits alluded to suggestive of Dr. Ripley, of Georgiana Bruce, of Orestes Brownson and others, but these hints are not definite enough to identify them with the personages of the book. As to the assumption that Margaret Fuller served as a model for Zenobia, that seems to me so far fetched as to be near absurdity.
Hawthorne visited Brook Farm occasionally, and I remember seeing him, a large, handsome man, walking up and down the Knoll or seated under the big elm, alone. He had not then attained fame and did not attract attention as a celebrity.
My industrial education was not confined to the cow-stable. At different times I worked in the green-house with John Codman, in the fields and meadows with everybody, and in the orchard and tree-nursery with Mr. Dana. On one occasion teacher and pupil were sitting on the ground, budding peach-seedlings, when a stranger approached and demanded a hearing. Gerrish had brought him out and had directed him to Vice President Dana as the authority he should consult. “Free speech, here,“ said the vice-president, without looking up from his work.
Speaking freely, the visitor announced that his mission was to save souls, and he had a message of warning to deliver to sinners in danger of eternal punishment. What he wanted was to have the people called together that he might exhort them as to the terror of the wrath to come.
“Our people do not need to be called. They come together every evening without calling.”
“Can I have an opportunity to address them this evening?” asked the missionary.