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.