Jack received my volley of opposing arguments, not only with fortitude but with apparent satisfaction, and simply said, "Have you finished?" As I had, he again took the floor.
"Now, I am sure that my foundation is secure and my psychological attitude all right, for all the objections you mention were brought up, in one form or another, at the meeting we held, and I was able to meet every one of them. No, my dear, I do not mean to uproot the 'eternals' and the Joneses shall stand for onion flavor to the end of time. The personal equation will always be considered. Each farmer will simply send his consignment of berries or fruit with explicit instructions as to recipes to be followed, just as our great-grandfathers sent their grist to the mill to be ground and ordered middlings left in or middlings left out, according as to whether it was for pancakes or bread. Those worthies took it on faith that they brought back the same grain they carried and there need be no question now. Farmer Dunn's marrowfats need never get mixed with Deacon White's telephone peas, and Mrs. Thornton can always send her flannel jelly bag.
"It is my opinion that the good wives will have gained enough leisure time to come to the Kitchen and inspect the process while their batch of fruit is being handled."
So closely are faith and works related in Jack's philosophy of life that in an incredibly short time Podunk awoke one morning to find the abandoned Haskell house turned into a "Community Kitchen," in charge of a New England man and his wife, of thrift and learning. They began on the currant crop.
Of course, since Jack was behind the innovation, I had to show my faith by sending the first lot, with instructions that the jelly should be boiled only one minute after the sugar was added. The twenty glasses of tender crystalline jelly that stood on my pantry shelf the next day needed no argument and so encouraged my nearest neighbor that she sent half of her picking to the Kitchen. I saw that it caused a wrench, but she supported herself on the consciousness that she was only risking half. But the jelly that came back adhered so closely in color, taste and texture to the "traditional" that the other half was sent without a qualm. This made a beginning and by the time the raspberries were ripe a dozen families were converted.
When the fall fruits came on, it had grown into such a fashion to send the preserving out that the capacity of the Kitchen was somewhat taxed. An evaporating outfit was added, that saved hundreds of bushels of apples from absolute waste. A simple device for making unfermented grape juice brought profit enough the first year to paint the town hall, build over the stage and buy a curtain that never failed to work.
The second year a "Sunshine" Laundry was added to the Kitchen, which proved a great boon. Podunk had wrestled with the domestic problem, but like the rest of the world had not solved it, and was left to do its own washing.
As the name suggests, the "Community Kitchen" was established on a coöperative basis, with the understanding that after all running expenses were paid and each contributor had a certain share of profit, proportioned to the amount of surplus material he contributed, all the remaining profit was to go for the improvement of the town.
The "Kitchen" is now three years old and every visitor coming to Podunk naturally wanders into the pretty new library on Main Street. The sweet-faced librarian is always cordial and tells you with unmasked pride that this is the first library built of fruit and vegetables.
But complete regeneration came not to Podunk, until the Culture Club became an active organization, impelled forward by the brain force of the women of the community. Given a margin of leisure, it was demonstrated that culture will flourish as persistently in rural districts as in city precincts. Shakespeare and Browning were not neglected, nor were Wagner and Mendelssohn.