“Dear Louey,—Your handwriting improves very fast. Take pains and do not be in a hurry. I like to have you make observations about our conversations and your own thoughts. It helps you to express them and to understand your little self. Remember, dear girl, that a diary should be an epitome of your life. May it be a record of pure thought and good actions, then you will indeed be the precious child of your loving mother.”

December 10th.—I did my lessons, and walked in the afternoon. Father read to us in dear “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Mr. L. was in Boston and we were glad. In the eve father and mother and Anna and I had a long talk. I was very unhappy, and we all cried. Anna and I cried in bed, and I prayed God to keep us all together.

IX
AUTUMN DISAPPOINTMENT

As any one knows who has any experience in farming, the true farmer spirit shows itself in the man who accepts the disappointment of a meagre crop in spite of his dreams of a plentiful harvest, and working diligently, gets what he can from it.

The crops at Fruitlands underwent many vicissitudes. No sooner did a crop show some sort of promise than they turned it back into the earth again, in order to enrich the soil, they said. This method did not tend to fill the winter storehouse with the needed vegetables, and a faint suggestion of disillusionment began to creep into the perfect harmony of the consociate family as autumn approached. Early in September Mr. Alcott and Charles Lane went on a trip in search of recruits. They went to Providence and had an evening’s conversation with Mrs. Newcomb and some of her friends, during which Mr. Alcott said that, as competition had made facilities so great, they might take that opportunity to go on to New York. Charles Lane then spoke up and said there was no other objection than lack of means, whereupon the company contributed the necessary amount. In writing to Oldham about it, Charles Lane passes comment on what he saw: “We went to the Graham House to breakfast where we found some people half if not quite alive” and again: “The number of living persons in the 300,000 inhabitants of New York is very small.” During this visit they went to see Mrs. L. M. Child, who gave the following account of it:

“A day or two after [Theodore] Parker left, Alcott and Lane called to see me. I asked, ‘What brings you to New York?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Mr. Alcott; ‘it seems a miracle that we are here.’ Mr. Child and John Hopper went to hear a discussion between them and W. H. Channing. I asked Mr. Child what they talked about. ‘Lane divided man into three states,—the disconscious, the conscious, and the unconscious. The disconscious is the state of the pig; the conscious is the baptism by water; and the unconscious is the baptism by fire.’ I laughed, and said, ‘Well, how did the whole discussion affect your mind?’ ‘Why, after I heard them talk a few minutes, I ‘ll be cursed if I knew whether I had any mind at all.’ J. H. stayed rather longer, though he left in the midst. He said they talked about mind and body. ‘What did they say?’ ‘Why, Channing seemed to think there was some connection between mind and body; but those Boston folks, so far as I could understand ‘em, seemed to think the body was all sham!’”

There is a story that on their return from New York they went by steamer to New Haven. All the money that had been contributed by Mrs. Newcomb and her friends had gone, but that did not trouble the philosophers. They boarded the boat quite serenely and when it started sat on deck enjoying the breeze. The ticket-man came to each passenger for his ticket, and when he came to Mr. Alcott and Mr. Lane, sitting there in their linen suits, he asked them for theirs. Quite undisturbed Mr. Alcott replied that they had no money or scrip, but they would quite willingly pay their way by addressing the passengers and crew with a little conversation in the saloon. It is said that in reply the language of the ticket-man was not as civil as it should have been.

It was all very pleasant, this wandering off and showing their linen tunics to the world and holding conversations to enlighten people in regard to the future wonders of the New Eden, but the day they left Fruitlands Joseph Palmer was off attending to his cattle at No Town, and the crop of barley had been cut and was waiting to be harvested. Poor Mrs. Alcott looked at it with anxious eyes. The granary was almost empty and this barley meant food. She could forget herself, but she could not ignore the needs of her children. Christopher Greene and Larned and Bower were also away. The barley lay there with no one to bring it in to a safe shelter. The next day she looked at it again with a sinking heart. As the afternoon waned, black clouds covered the sky and flashes of lightning rent seams through them with terrifying rapidity. Then Mrs. Alcott made a quick decision. Gathering all the baskets she could find, she carried them to the barley-field with the help of the children, and in hot haste they gathered the barley into the baskets and dragged them to the granary, and then ran back as fast as they could for more. Thus they worked with all their strength, and when the storm broke, they had saved enough to last them for at least a few weeks.

So if Mrs. Alcott lacked, as Lane said, spiritual insight, she fortunately for them had practical foresight, from which they all reaped a benefit.