The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The East

by Walter A. Wyckoff

"We don't have to work; we can starve."

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I have spent three Sundays in the woods. On the first I fled cravenly into the forest, hugging a book from out my pack, and the hours flew swiftly along the pages. The second Sunday was another glorious autumn day. By that time I had won a modest place in camp, and could hold up my head with due respect among the men. I asked several of them whether there was any church service at English Centre. They thought that there was, but they would take no stock at all in my plan of discovery.

Alone I set out for the village. There was perfect quiet in the mountains, no sound of axe or saw, nor crash of falling trees, nor rumble of bark-wagons; only the tuneful flow and splash of the run, which caught the living sunlight, and flashed it back in radiance through the flushing air, that quivered in the ecstasy of buoyant life. The fire of life flamed in the glowing hues of autumn, and burned with white heat in the hoar-frost which clung to the shaded crevices in the rocks, and along the blades of seared grass, and on the fringe of fallen leaves. And I was free, as free and careless as the mountain-stream, and before me was a blessed day of rest!

Every foot of the road was strangely familiar, but the familiarity lay in an intimate association with some distant past, as of earliest childhood. There was the camp by the dam, and there the Irishman's cabin, where the cow was still munching straw, and the sow wallowing in the mire. Then I came to the fork in the road, where one way led to Wolf's Run. It was a lifetime since I had gone up that way, feeling as cocky as a wedding-guest, and soon had come down again "a sadder and a wiser man." I felt like another Rip Van Winkle as I re-entered the village, but the marvel lay in there being no change at all, except in the Sunday calm which now possessed the place.

The post-office is in a private house, and I knocked in some uncertainty of being able to get my letters; but the postmistress gave them to me with obliging readiness, and with them a cordial invitation to attend the Sunday-school, which, she said, was the only service of that morning. Her invitation was more welcome than she knew, for it was the first of its kind to reach me as a proletaire.

I read my letters, and then went to the church, which stands at the end of the village street. The service was beginning. As superintendent the postmistress was in charge. There were no men present. About thirty women and girls, and half a dozen boys, made up the school. The conduct of the service I thought intensely interesting. The superintendent was entirely at home in her place, and she valued the opportunity.

When the classes grouped themselves for the study of the lesson, a teacher was lacking. I was asked to take the place, and was startled at finding myself in charge of a class of village belles. What their feeling toward the arrangement was, I could only guess; but it was clear that they were not accustomed to being taught by an unshaven, unshorn woodsman, in rough clothes, and boots covered with patches. But the lesson was in my favor; it was the incident of the washing of the disciples' feet at the last Passover. I soon forgot my embarrassment in the interest of the text, and in an atmosphere of serious study.

Last Sunday I went again to the Sunday-school, and I had my former class to teach. Some preparation had been possible during the week, and the hour passed successfully. Among the announcements was one of a prayer-meeting to be held that night.