Chapter 15

Barton was a strange, strong-minded, ignorant man. Hardly able to compose a sentence in correct English, he employed educated, but unresourceful assistants who furnished the good grammar, while he supplied the initiative and original ideas, and increased the influence and circulation of his magazine. Also he lived strenuously up to the doctrines he taught; fasting, for instance.

Soon after I reached "Perfection City" he launched on his two weeks' annual fast. Up in the big house where he lived, in the next town of Andersonville (he himself would have been gladder of a mere shack or tent like the rest of us--but his wife negated any such idea) Mrs. Barton used to taunt and insult him by putting out the best food under his nose, during this time.

Mrs. Barton was a terror. She was ever inviting to her house that kind of people who know somebody "worth while" or are related to somebody who, in their turn, are, perhaps, related to--somebody else!...

In their presence she would patronise Barton by calling him "Stevie!" in her drawling, patronising manner....

When the woman came in among the tents and shacks of our "city" she would, in speaking with any of us, imply all sorts of mean, insinuating things about her reformer-husband....

Barton, they said, met her while on one of his lecture tours....

Their baby ... a little, red object like a boiled lobster ... the anonymous, undistinguished creatures all babies are at that time--the mother used to bring it in among us and coo and coo over it so ridiculously that we made her behaviour a joke among us.

* * * * *

Barton's secretary was a beautiful, gentle, large-eyed girl ... wholly feminine ... soft-voiced ... as a reaction from the nagging of his wife, from her blatancy and utter lack of sympathy with any of his projects, he insensibly drifted into a relationship closer and closer, with this girl ... they used to take long walks into the pines together ... and be observed coming back slowly out of the sunset ... hand in hand ... to drop each other's hands, when they considered that the observing line of vision had been reached.

* * * * *

Lying under my huge army tent, by the shore of pretty little Lake Emily, I dreamed long and often, in the hush of starry midnight, of reconstructing the life of the whole world--especially the love-life between men and women.

Shelley was my God, not Christ. Shelley's notes to _Queen Mab_ were my creed, as his poetry and Whitman's furnished me my Bible. Through them I would reform the world!

I had not realised then (as Shelley did not till his death), the terrific inertia of people, their content, even, with the cramping and conventional ideas and beliefs that hold them in unconscious slavery....

I think that summer I learned Shelley and Whitman by heart.

And Keats was more than my creed. He comprised my life!

Day by day I took care of my body, gaining in weight, filling out the hollows in my face, till I had grown into a presentable young man. For the first time in my life I knew the meaning of perfect health. Every atom of my blood tingled with natural happiness as I have felt it in later days, under the stimulation of good wine.

No coffee, no tea, no beefsteak, no alcohol....

On that summer's ideal living I built the foundation of the health and strength, that, long after, I finally acquired as a permanent possession.

* * * * *

Stephen Barton and I had many interesting talks together. With the cultural background of Europe he might have been a Rousseau or a Phalanisterian. As it was, he ran a "natural life" magazine which, though crude, benefited hundreds of people. What though it showed pictures of stupid men and women revealing, in poses rivalling the contortionist, their physical development acquired through his methods.

* * * * *

We would collect many people about us, to serve as a nucleus from which the future society of men and women would expand ... we would all live together as nearly naked as possible, because that was, after all, the only pure thing ... as Art showed, in its painting and sculpture. We would make our livings by the manufacture of all sorts of exercising apparatus and health-foods....

And so the world would be leavened with the new idea ... and men and women and little children would wander forth from the great, unclean, insanitary cities and live in clusters of pretty cottages ... naked, in good weather,--in bad, clothed for warmth and comfort, but not for shame. And the human body would become holy.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the petty, local fight had started which was to disrupt this hope of Barton's, and thwart its fulfillment forever.

The town of Andersonville became jealous of the town of Cottswold because the latter handled most of the mail of our city and thereby had achieved the position of third or fourth class postoffice--I don't know exactly which.

The struggle commenced when the two lone policemen of Andersonville began to arrest us--men and women--when we walked into their town for provisions, clad in our bathing suits ... later on, we were forbidden to run for exercise, in our bathing suits, on the fine, macadamised road that passed not far from our dwellings ... it shocked the motorists.

Yet people came from far and near, just to be shocked. That seems to be the chief, most delightful, and only lawfully indulged emotion of the Puritan.

Barton summoned us to a meeting, one night, and we held a long palaver over the situation. We decided to become more cautious, in spite of a few hotheads who advised defiance to the hilt....

And the beautiful girl that possessed such fine breasts could no longer row about on our little lake, naked to the waist. And we were requested to go far in among the trees for our nude sun-baths.

The more radical of us moved entirely into the woods, despite the sand flies....

Then the affair simmered down to quietness--till the New York _World_ and the New York _Journal_ sent out their reporters.... After that, what with the lurid and insinuating stories printed, the state authorities began to look into the matter--and found no harm in us.

But the Andersonville officials were out for blood. Cottswold was growing too fast for their injured civic pride and vanity.

"Can't you divide your mail between the two towns, and make them both third or fourth class or whatever-it-is postoffice towns?" I asked Barton, after he had given me the simple explanation of the whole affair.

"No--for if I took anything away from Cottswold and added it to Andersonville, then the Cottswold authorities would become my adversaries, too ... the only thing I can do," he added, "is what I meant to do all along,--as soon as our 'city' has grown important enough--have 'Perfection City' made a postoffice."

"And then make enemies of both towns at once?"

He threw up his hands in despair and walked away.

* * * * *

Having quit work with the gang that was laying out the streets of the future city through the pines, I was entirely out of the few dollars my several weeks' work had enabled me to save ... though but little was needed to exist by, in that community of simple livers ... my procuring my tent free had rendered me quite independent....

One afternoon Barton met me on the dam-head.

"Come on in swimming with me ... I have something to talk with you about," he said.

We swam around and talked, as nonchalantly as two other men would have done, sitting in their club.

"How would you like to work for me again?"

"What is it you want me to work at?"

"I need a cook for my nature restaurant ... can you cook?"

I thought. I knew his present cook, MacGregor, the Scot, and I didn't want to do him out of a job. Besides, I didn't know how to cook.

The first objection Barton read in my face.

"MacGregor is quitting ... I'm not firing him."

"All right ... I'll take the job."

Our conference over, we had climbed out to the top of the dam, slid over, and were now standing beneath. The water galloped down in a snowy cataract of foam, as we topped off our swim with the heavy "shower-bath" that was like a massage in its pummelling.

* * * * *

MacGregor good-naturedly stayed an extra week, saying he'd show me the run of things. Secretly he tried to teach me how to cook....

As the cooking was not all of the "nature" order, but involved preparing food for a horde of people we called "outsiders" who were employed in Barton's publishing plant, I would have to prepare meat and bake bread and make tea and coffee....

Barton confessed to me that a food-compromise was distasteful to him. But he could not coerce. While lecturing about the country it was often, even with him, "eat beefsteaks or starve!"

MacGregor was a professional Scotchman, just as there are professional Irishmen, Englishmen and professional Southern Gentlemen ... every Scotchman is a professional Scotchman ... but there is always something pleasant and poetic about his being so ... it is not as it is with the others--whose "professionalism" generally bears an unpleasant reek.

MacGregor had sandy, scanty hair, a tiny white shadow of a moustache, kindly, weak eyes, a forehead prematurely wrinkled with minute, horizontal lines. Burns ... of course ... he knew and quoted every line to me. And _Sentimental Tommy_ and _Tommy and Grizel_.

* * * * *

In a week I was left in full possession of the nature restaurant.

Barton had been rendered slightly paring and mean, in matters of money,--by smooth individuals who came to him, glowing with words of what they could effect for him, in this or that project--individuals who soon decamped, leaving Barton the poorer, except in experience.

In return he had to retrench. But the retrenchments fell in the place where the penny, not the dollar, lay.

He practised economy on me. He gave me only ten dollars a week, board and room free, as cook; and also I was to wait on the diners, as well as prepare the meals.

Nevertheless the fault for having two jobs at once thrust on me, rested partly with me: when he asked me if I was able to do both, I fell into a foolish, boasting mood and said "yes."

MacGregor figured out my menu for me a week ahead, the day he left: "Anyhow, you'll only last a week," he joked.

The night before the first breakfast I lay awake all night, worrying ... hadn't I better just sneak away with daylight?... no, I must return to Mt. Hebron in the fall. Though all I wanted to return for was to show the school, that, in spite of my spindly legs, I could win my "H" in track athletics.

I must make good at this job, and save ... my grandmother, who had sent me money the previous year, I must not call on her again. And I did not count on my father ... for he was strenuously in the saddle to a grass widow, the one who had lured him to change boarding houses, and she was devouring his meagre substance like the Scriptural locust.

* * * * *

That first breakfast was a nightmare. I "practised breakfast" from three o'clock till six ... by six I had started another breakfast, and by seven, after having spoiled and burned much food, I was tolerably ready for customers ... who seemed, at that hour, to storm the place.

* * * * *

It is not necessary to go into detail. In three days I was through. And I had my first fight with Barton.

* * * * *

I was back in my army tent once more, free, with my Shelley, my Keats, my manuscript....

In despair of ever returning to Hebron, once more I lay under starry nights, dreaming poetry and comparing myself to all the Great Dead....

With the top of the tent pulled back to let the stars in, I lay beneath the gigantic, marching constellations overhead--under my mosquito netting--and wrote poems under stress of great inspiration ... at times it seemed that Shelley was with me in my tent--a slight, grey form ... and little, valiant, stocky Keats, too.

* * * * *

After my quarrel with Barton, he tried to oust me from that desirable site the Bishop's wife had turned over to me ... indeed, he tried to persuade me to leave the colony. But I would not stir.

There was a young fellow in the "City" named Vinton.... Vinton was the strong man of the place. He spent three hours every morning exercising, in minute detail, every muscle of his body ... and he had developed beautiful muscles, each one of which stood out, like a turn in a rope, of itself.

Vinton was sent to oust me, by force if need be.

I really was afraid of him when he strode up to me, as I lay there reading the _Revolt of Islam_ again.

With a big voice he began to hint, mysteriously, that it would be wise for me to clear out. I showed him that I held a clear title and right to sojourn there till Christmas, if I chose to, as the bishop's wife had paid for the site till that time, and had then transferred the use of the location to me. I showed him her letter ... with the Tallahassee postmark.

His only answer was, that he knew nothing about that ... that Barton wanted the place, and, that if I wouldn't vacate peaceably--and he looked me in the eyes like some great, calm animal.

Though my heart was pounding painfully, against, it seemed, the very roof of my mouth, I compelled my eyes not to waver, but to look fiercely into his....

"Are you going to start packing?"

"No, I am not going to start packing."

"I can break your neck with one twist," and he illustrated that feat with a turn of one large hand in the air.

He came slowly in, head down, as if to pick me up and throw me down.

I waited till he was close, then gave him an upward rip with all my might, a blow on the forehead that made the blood flow, and staggered him with consternation. To keep myself still at white heat, I showered blows on him. To my surprise, he fell back.

"Wait--wait," he protested in a small voice, "I--I was just fooling."

* * * * *

After Vinton left, my blood still pouring through my veins in a triumphant glow, I sat on the ground by the side of my tent-floor and composed a poem....

That afternoon Barton's office boy was sent to me, as an emissary of peace.

"The boss wants to see you in his office."

"Tell your boss that my office is down here. If he wants to see me he can come here."

The boy scurried away. I was now looked upon as a desperate man.

* * * * *

And I was happy. I sang at the top of my voice, an old ballad about Captain John Smith, so that Barton could hear it through the open window of his office....

"And the little papooses dig holes in the sand ... _Vive le Capitaine John!_..."

I leaped into the lake, without even my gee-string on, and swam far out, singing....

* * * * *

Late that evening, Barton came to my tent ... very gently and sweetly ... he no longer called me John or Johnnie ... I was now Mr. Gregory. He asked me, if he rented the plot back from me, would I go in peace? I replied, no, I meant to stay there till the middle of September, when the fall term opened at Mt. Hebron.

Then he asked me, would I just join forces with him,--since we must put the movement above personalities....

We had a long talk about life and "Nature" ideals. The man showed all his soul, all his struggles, to me. And I saw his real greatness and was moved greatly. And I informed him I would antagonise him no longer, that, though I would not give up the desirable site, otherwise, I would help him all I could.

Then he said he would be glad to have me stay, and we shook hands warmly, the moisture of feeling shining in our eyes.

* * * * *

As the time for my return to school drew near, I was in fine physical condition, better than ever before in my life. I was still somewhat thin, but now it could be called slenderness, not thinness. And I was surprised at the laughing, healthy, sun-browned look of my face.

I felt a confidence in myself I had never known before....

* * * * *

I had a flirtation with a pretty, freckle-faced girl. She worked in Barton's "factory," and she used to come down to my tent where I sat reading, with only my trunks on,--during the noon hour,--and ask me to read poetry aloud to her. And I read Shelley. She would draw shyly closer to me, sending me into a visible tremour that made me ashamed of myself.

At times, as we read, her fair, fine hair would brush my cheek and send a shiver of fire through me. But I still knew nothing about women. I never even offered to kiss her.

But when she was away from me, at night specially, I would go into long, luxurious, amorous imaginations over her and the possession of her, and I would dream of loving her, and of having a little cottage and children....

But words and elegant, burning phrases are never enough for a woman.

In a week I noticed her going by on the arm of a mill-hand.

* * * * *

And, broke again, I wrote to my grandmother that I must have fifty dollars to get back to school on. And, somehow, she scraped it together and sent it to me. My first impulse was to be ashamed of myself and start to return it. Then I kept it. For, after all, it was for poetry's sake.

* * * * *

On the train to Hebron, as I walked up the car to my seat, health shining in my smooth, clear face and skin, the women and girls gave me approving, friendly glances, and I was happy.

A summer of control from unhealthy habits had done this for me, a summer of life, naked, in the open air, plus exercise. I had learned a great lesson. To Barton I owe it that I am still alive, vigorously alive, not crawlingly ... but I suffered several slumps before I attained and held my present physique. For the world and life afford complications not found in "Perfection City."

* * * * *

The school hill lay before my eyes again. From it spread on all sides the wonderful Connecticut valley. Up and down the paths to the dining hall, the buildings in which classes were held, the Chapel crowning the topmost crest, wandered groups of boys in their absurd, postage-stamp caps, their peg-top trousers, their wide, floppy raglan coats.

I was a senior now. At first my change in bodily build and bettered health rendered me hardly recognisable to my friends.

The very first day I reached Hebron again I was out on the wide, oval field, lacing around the track. In a month would come the big track-meet and I was determined this time, to win enough points to earn me my "H."

* * * * *

Principal Stanton sent for me, the second day after my arrival.

"I wanted to have a long talk with you before you got settled, Gregory."

His steely, blue eyes gleamed through his gold-rimmed eyeglasses.

"Sit down."

And we had a talk lasting over an hour ... about religion mainly. He was surprised to learn that I knew a lot about the early Church fathers, had read Newman, and understood the Oxford controversy ... had read many of the early English divines....

"Gregory," he cried, putting his hand on my knee, "what a power for God you would be, if you would only give over your eccentricities and become a Christian ... a chap with your magnetism--in spite of your folly!--"

He impressed on me the fact, that, now I was a senior, more would be expected of me ... that the younger boys would look up to me, as they did to all seniors, and I must be more careful of my deportment before them ... my general conduct....

He asked me what I intended making of myself.

"A poet!" I exclaimed.

He spread his hands outward with a gesture of despair.

"Of course, one can write poetry if necessary ... but what career are you choosing?"

"The writing of poetry."

"But, my dear Gregory, one can't make a living by that ... and one must live."

"Why must one live?" I replied fervently, "did Christ ever say 'One must live'?"

"Gregory, you are impossible," laughed Stanton heartily, "but we're all rather fond of you ... and we want you to behave, and try to graduate. Though we can't tell just what you might do in after-life ... whether you'll turn out a credit to the School or not."

"Professor Stanton, I have a favour to ask of you before I go," I asked, standing.

"Yes?" and he raised his eyebrows.

"I want to know if I can have that room alone, over the platform, in Recitation Hall."

"You'll have to ask Professor Dunn about that ... he has charge of room-transfers ... but why can't you room as the other students do?... I don't know whether it is good for you, to let you live by yourself ... you're already different enough from the other boys ... what you need is more human companionship, Gregory, not less."

"I want to do a lot of writing. I want to be alone to think. I plan to read Westcott and Hort's Greek New Testament all through, again, this winter." ... This was a sop to his religious sentiment. I related how I had first read the New Testament in the Greek, while on a cattle-boat, in the China Seas....

"Gregory, you're quite mad ... but you're a smooth one, too!" his eyes gleamed, amused, behind his glasses....

"And I want to write a lot of poems drawn from the parables of the New Testament"--though, not till that minute had such an idea entered my head....

When I was admitted to the study of Professor Dunn and sat down waiting for him among his antique busts and rows of Latin books, I had formulated further plans to procure what I desired....

He came in, heavily dignified, like a dark, stocky Roman, grotesque in modern dress, lacking the toga.

I told him of my New Testament idea ... and added to it, as an afterthought, that I also wanted to prosecute a special study of the lyrics of Horace. Though he explained to me that Horace belonged to the college curriculum, his heart expanded. Horace was his favourite poet--which, of course, I knew....

I got my room.

I borrowed a wheelbarrow from the barn, and wheeled my trunk down to Recitation Hall, singing.

* * * * *

What a hypocrite I had been! But I had obtained what I sought--a room alone. But now I must, in truth, study the Greek Testament and Horace....

I figured out that if I enrolled for several extra Bible courses the Faculty would be easier on me with my other studies, and let me cut some of them out entirely.

To make myself even more "solid," I gave out that I had been persuaded to Christianity so strongly, of a sudden, that I contemplated studying for the ministry. I even wrote my grandmother that this was what I intended to do. And her simple, pious letter in return, prayerful with thanks to God for my conversion so signal--in secret cut me to the heart....

But it gave me a temporary pleasure, now, to be looked upon as "safe." To be openly welcomed at prayer-meetings ... I acted, how I acted, the ardent convert ... and how frightened I was, at myself, to find that, at times, I believed that I believed!...

My former back-sliding was forgiven me.

And the passage of Tennyson about "one honest doubt" being more than half the creeds, was quoted in my favour.

* * * * *

Field-day!...

* * * * *

I entered for the two-mile, to be run off in the morning ... for the half-mile, the first thing in the afternoon ... the mile, which was to be the last event, excepting the hammer-throw. My class, in a body, had urged me to enter for all the "events" I could ... when the delegation came, I welcomed them, with gratified self-importance, to my solitary room. I invited them in, and they sat about ... on my single chair ... my bed ... the floor....