Our plain fare—very plain indeed it was—occasioned a good deal of comment among our friends. They were afraid we would starve but we didn’t. We were all splendidly well, kept in fine condition and in the best of high spirits. The very few-cases of sickness on the place were every one of them brought there from elsewhere, until the advent of the scourge—and that too, we brought or was possibly sent, from outside our healthful borders.
On the whole, again, from the social point of view, the Brook Farm experiment was eminently successful. We were happy, contented, well-off and care-free; doing a great work in the world, enthusiastic and faithful, we enjoyed every moment of every day, dominated every moment of every day by the Spirit of Brook Farm.
CHAPTER X.
UNTO THIS LAST
There were two funerals at Brook Farm, during my time, and I think there were no more afterward. A young woman named Williams came there with incipient tuberculosis and after being tenderly cared for and made as comfortable as possible for several months, peacefully passed away. That was the only death. The deceased was buried with simple but impressive services in a quiet nook at the far end of the pine woods. This was the retired spot where the members of the community expected to be interred when their labors in this world came to an end. That expectation was not fulfilled. The Brook Farmers have nearly all joined the congregation of the beyond, but they are sepulchred in the four quarters of the globe. Theodore Parker’s monument is visited by tourists in Italy. Captain John Steel made his last voyage to the port of Hong Kong. John S. Dwight lies in Mount Vernon; Dr. and Mrs. Ripley in Greenwood. The young couple who went to California never came back and never will. Robert Shaw fell at Fort Sumter and shares a place in the trenches with his men; and the battlefields of the South hold all that was mortal of three others. Not one found final shelter under the sod of Brook Farm.
The Rev. John Allen on resigning his pastorate to become a member of our community, was detained for a time by the illness of his wife. When she died he brought her remains for burial in the little cemetery among the pines. This was the second funeral I witnessed, and I think there were no others during the existence of the community.
Some years since I visited the old place with Dr. Codman, and, among the other well remembered localities we sought out the place where we had attended two funerals in the long-ago of our boyhood, but the mementos of these two occasions were not to be found. During the war of the Rebellion Brook Farm had been used as a convalescent camp, and many of the sick and wounded were mustered out there by the last general orders which we must all obey. Among the numberless soldiers’ graves it was impossible to identify the two mounds for which we were looking.
As noted, the Phalanx had several of its members in the lecture field to aid in forwarding the socialist movement. The cost of this propaganda and the publication of the Harbinger, the Socialistic organ, must have been a tax on the slender resources of the community, but to make sacrifices for the great cause was quite in accordance with the spirit of Brook Farm, and, so far as I know the burden was cheerfully borne. The Rev. John Allen was one of those engaged in this educational work and much of his time was given to it. He was affectionately devoted to his motherless child, a charming little girl of perhaps four years, and when the conditions favored he took her with him on his lecturing tours. One evening he came home unexpectedly, bringing the child as she was not feeling well, and leaving her in Mrs. Rykeman’s care. The baby and I were dear friends, and, the next day, she being confined to Mrs. Rykeman’s rooms, I spent the afternoon trying to entertain her. Toward night, as she was evidently very sick, a doctor was called in from Brookline. The physician examined the little one and pronounced the dreadful verdict that we had on our hands a case of virulent smallpox.
That was the beginning of the end. As Mrs. Ryekman and I had been exposed to contagion, we were quarantined in her rooms and every precaution was taken to prevent the spread of the disease. Neither Mrs. Rykeman nor I had a single symptom of the disorder, but presently, other cases appeared, one after another, and during the next few months, the scourge ran through the community.
Thanks, no doubt, to the sturdy good health of our people, the invasion by this enemy of mankind—and a terrible enemy the smallpox then was—did not prove directly calamitous. The baby was the only one seriously sick, and she made a rapid recovery, as indeed did all the others who were attacked. There were not more than a dozen cases from first to last and not one suffered much more than inconvenience, and not one had a pit or spot such as the smallpox leaves to mark its victims.
After the first shock of surprise and alarm, the affliction was endured without a murmur. It was a hard trial and we all knew it, but it was borne with courage and equanimity as all trials and hardships were borne by this high-souled company, imbued with the true spirit of Brook Farm.