My Friends at Brook Farm

by John Van der Zee Sears

Instruction was not confined to the studies of the classes. Except in the hours when pupils were left to their own devices, there was always a teacher or a guardian at hand giving intelligent direction to whatever was going on, maintaining discipline in the fundamental requirement of paying strict attention, and imparting information respecting the subject in hand.

By way of illustration it may be noted that Minot Pratt was the head farmer during the early days and a good farmer he proved to be. He not only worked wonders with the poor soil of the place but managed at the same time to give a deal of thought and care to his industrial classes. The boys and girls who elected to work in the fields and gardens with Minot Pratt received many a valuable lesson in botany, agricultural chemistry, and the planting, cultivating and harvesting of crops.

Mr. Pratt and his family left Brook Farm when the association was reorganized as a Fourierite Phalanx, and was succeeded by John Codman, who, under the new order, was made Chief of the Agricultural Series, a post which he filled with signal ability during the remaining years of the community’s existence. The Codmans were important members of the Phalanx taking responsible places in the management of affairs, and fully demonstrating the practicability of abiding by Christian principles in every day life. They were the last to leave the place, remaining to assume the sad task of winding up the details of final settlements.

At one time I worked in the flower garden and the conservatory with one of the Codman boys whom I called Baas, as he was my elder and my superior in the business of raising plants, shrubs and flowers for market. The economic worth of kindness to animals is shown by our daily use of a prize bull as a draught animal to draw the cart in hauling manure, to drag the cultivator in the garden and similar tasks. He was a magnificent creature, a gift from Francis George Shaw and was, at most seasons so gentle and docile that the Baas used to ride on his back between the barn and the garden.

Wednesdays and Saturdays were half-holidays not only for the school but for the entire community. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoon the whole place was en-fete. Work was suspended except the simple household duties and the care of the animals, and the hours were devoted to having a good time. The pupils were allowed to do as they pleased, and it pleased us boys sometimes to be robbers and brigands and smugglers in a cavern behind the Eyrie. Here we could build a fire on condition that no fire was ever to be built elsewhere. This dark and dismal cave occupied a conspicuous place in my memories of Brook Farm for many years until in later life, I took my daughter to visit the old place, when puffed up pride had a bad fall. When we came to the cave, I could hardly believe my own eyes. That spacious den of thieves, that resort of bold outlaws was a cleft between two great boulders. One could crawl into it and turn around and that was about all, It surely must have shrunk or filled up or contracted or something, such a poor little quart-pot of a cavern it proved to be.

There was another boulder which, on the same occasion, served me a better turn, enabling me to identify the site where Pilgrim Hall had stood. This one of the many big rocks scattered about the place was located immediately in front of Pilgrim Hall, and I recognized it by a certain little pouch or pocket next the ground on its southerly side; a circumstance I had cause to remember as it cost me money. The pupils of the school were allowed a trifle of money, weekly, which we could spend in any way we liked. Occasionally we went over to the street and bought oranges or plantains—bananas—rarely sweets, as the sticks of candy, striped like a barber’s pole in a glass jar on the end of the store counter were not very tempting. Often we chipped in our pennies, boys and girls together, and commissioned Gerrish to purchase some book we wanted or perhaps some bit of finery for festal decoration.

There was one boy who did not take part in our financial ventures. What he did with his money we did not know, but we never saw a cent of it. He was ready enough to share our goodies but carefully kept his cash in his own hands. One day when we were playing three-old-cat in front of Pilgrim Hall, we lost the ball and searched for it in vain. Steediwink, as one of the older boys was familiarly called, in groping around the foot of the boulder above referred to, found a hole in the rock into which he thrust his hand. At the far end of the hole was a sort of shelf and thereon was piled a hoard of small change. If everyone knew whose treasury we had opened, no one named any names, and the find was forthwith confiscated for the benefit of the festival fund.

Some days later, Mr. Hosmer in his evening talk to the children very significantly stated that one of the scholars had lost a sum of money and asked us to try and find it and bring it to him that he might restore it to the rightful owner. It took all our allowances for several weeks to make up the needed amount, but finally the lost cash was found, and Mr. Hosmer thanked us, again very significantly, for aiding him in squaring up a somewhat grievous account. The miserly boy was of course to be commended for thrift, but he was not of our kind and did not remain long in our company. He took care of his pence and his pounds took care of themselves, no doubt in later life, but that is only surmise as he was one of the few that we others did not try to keep track of after Brook Farm became a thing of the past.

CHAPTER VIII.
ODDMENTS

John Cheever was our eccentric character; not a crank, not an egotist, not an enthusiast and not a Socialist, but just a plain, good-natured, shrewd-witted Irishman, who, for some reason, liked to live at the Farm. He never joined the Association or the Phalanx but just stayed on as a permanent boarder. He was the newsman and general gossip of the place, going about from house to house and from group to group, working a little here and a little there, as he pleased, and always having something interesting or amusing to tell, his brogue giving a comic twist to his ever ready jest. Taking no part in the regular industries except as his humor dictated, he was yet a very busy person and very helpful in many ways. When there was any out-of-the-way job to be done it was John Cheever who did it, and especially in the work of preparing for entertainments, he was the handy man of the Festal Series, Stage carpenter, scene shifter, door keeper, painter and utility man on the stage. Though not attached to any of the industrial groups, he took upon himself certain duties which he never neglected. In winter he took care of the fires at night, going the rounds from the Hive to the Eyrie, the Cottage and Pilgrim Hall in all kinds of weather with faithful regularity. Our main dependence for fuel was peat, or turf, as John Cheever called it, and to keep the rooms warm with this low-grade fuel, the fires had to be renewed every five or six hours.