“Who would have thought fifteen years ago, John, that you and I could be living in the comfort and ease that we are today? The most comfortable house ever built on ground, large or small, when built separately, could never have the advantage these apartment buildings have. Our large windows give the necessary light we old people need, and I tell you when the eyesight is dim, especially when we had good sight, it is very hard to go stumbling along, especially in your own home. I think the society’s determination to preserve its light and air and not allow the buildings to be crowded together, is a very great advantage. It suits me, I can tell you.”
“The variety in the cooking is what I like,” said Mr. White. “When our girls got married and wife and I had the farm to ourselves, she seemed all played out and couldn’t cook as she used to. Then one after the other of the boys left us and went to the cities. They thought the farm work was too hard, when they could have the money in their hand each week, and it seemed a lot to them out on the farm, where they had no board bills to pay, but they have found out the difference and I have now arranged to have them all here now. When I signed over my farm to the society all three came out in a great state of mind. They thought I had done them an injustice. I told them, ‘You must remember that after your mother and I had raised you and worked hard to keep the place together, first paying for it when you children were too young to be of any help, we fairly begged you to stay with us and help us when you were grown up. Oh, no, the city was the only place for you then.’ Then I said, ‘Do you think we are going to work and pay out all we can rake and scrape together for hired men to work the place, so you boys can have it after our death? Have we no rights? Are you children of more consequence than we are? Who earned it?’
“Well, they didn’t like the way I was doing it. What was I going to do with the stock? I told them I had given it all over to the society and arranged it so that wife and I had permanent shares in exchange to keep us in comfort the rest of our lives. We also had the satisfaction of seeing younger men and women earning enough to make up any deficiency in a way that you would not do if we should need it.
“‘Well, what will become of your shares after your death?’ one said.
“‘They will go to the society,’ I told them unless they joined it. In that case I could leave them to my children if they would do as other members would and increase their own shares. I told them that all had to look ahead for their old age if they became members, for the society was representing wealth and wouldn’t take any one that would spend everything they earned while in the freshness of youth. I said that they could easily save enough in the next fifteen years to make them comfortable the rest of their lives if they became members and I wished that they would. Then I asked them why they didn’t tell us that it was more loneliness than hard work that took them to the city. They looked surprised and one said that it wasn’t. I told them that I had thought it was, since I had lived in the community where all could hear good music and lectures, see good plays and something worth listening to in the conversation with those one came in contact with. I had become convinced that they were right in leaving the farm, and I did not blame them.
“‘Still you don’t secure your property to us?’ one said.
“‘Oh, no,’ I told them. ‘If you boys have not the ability to earn sufficient for your old age, you don’t deserve to have anything. These young men and women who are keeping up the work in the society have the best right to what I leave, unless you show that you will do as they are doing.’
“Oh, yes, young people can leave their parents just at the time when they are most needed and if in after years there is any property left, they think it a great hardship if their parents leave it to any one else.”
The old friends talked on and presently their wives joined them. They, too, had been taking a walk and hearing the last of the conversation, gave some of their ideas of the society.
“What I like about it,” remarked Mrs. White, “is the freedom from care. On the farm it is continual work, late and early, looking after the stock and feeding or growing food. Now I can rest. Our apartments need only a little straightening and dusting once a week. Each day while I make the bed, husband waters the flowers and I must say I like the wide porches with the boxes of plants on the edges. We make the porch our sitting room in the summer and when winter comes, the windows are so large, we can keep a nice lot of them and send the rest to the greenhouses.”