FROM KINGSTON TO ORDERVILLE.
On the way to Panguitch--Section-houses not Mormon homes--Through
wild country--Panguitch and its fish--Forbidden pleasures--At the
source of the Rio Virgin--The surpassing beauty of Long Valley--The
Orderville Brethren--A success in Family Communism.
NEXT day we started over the hills for Panguitch, some forty miles
off. And here, by the roadside, was pointed out to me one of those
"section-houses" which a traveller in Utah once mistook for Mormon
"homes," and described "cabins, ten feet by six, built of planks, one
window with no glass in it, one doorway with no door in it." This is an
accurate description enough of a section-house, but it is a mistake to
suppose that any one ever lives in it, as section-houses are only put
up to comply with the Homestead Act, which stipulates for a building
with one doorway and one window being erected upon each lot within a
certain period of its allotment. But they do duty all the same in a
certain class of literature as typical of the squalid depravity of
the Mormons, for, being inhabited by Mormons, it follows, of course,
that several wives, to say nothing of numerous children, have all to
sleep together "on the floor of the single room the house contains!"
Isn't this a dreadful picture! And are not these large polygamous
families who live in section-houses a disgrace to America? But,
unfortunately for this telling picture, the only "inhabitants" of these
section-houses are Gentile tramps.
A rough hill-road, strewn with uncompromising rocks, jolted us for
some miles, and then we crossed a stream-bed with some fine old pines
standing in it, and beds of blue lupins brightening the margin, and
so came down to the river level, and along a lane running between
hedges of wild-rose and redberry (the "opie" of the Indians) tangled
with clematis and honeysuckle, and haunted by many birds and brilliant
butterflies. The river bubbled along among thickets of golden currant
and red willow, and mallards with russet heads floated in the quiet
backwaters, by the side of their dames all dressed in dainty grey. It
was altogether a charming passage in a day of such general dreariness,
reminding one of a pleasant quotation from some pretty poem in the
middle of a dull chapter by some prosy writer.
But the dulness recommences, and then we find ourselves at a wayside
farm, where a couple of fawns with bells round their necks are keeping
the calves company, and some boys are fishing on a little log bridge.
These fish must have been all born idiots, or been stricken with
unanimous lunacy in early youth, for the manner of their capture
was this. The angler lay on his stomach on the "bridge" (it was a
three foot and a half stream), with one eye down between two of the
logs. When he saw any fish he thrust his "rod"--it was more like a
penholder--through the space, and held it in front of the fishes'
noses. At the end of the rod were some six inches of string, with a
hook tied on with a large knot, and baited with a dab of dough. When
the fish had got thoroughly interested in the dough, the angler would
jerk up his rod, and by some unaccountable oversight on the part of
the fishes it was found that about once in fifty jerks a fish came up
out of the water! They seemed tome to be young trout; but, whatever
the species, they must have been the most imbecile of finned things. I
suggested catching them with the finger and thumb, but the boys giggled
at me, as "the fish wouldn't let ye." But I am of a different opinion,
for it seemed to me that fish that would let you catch them with such
apparatus, would let you catch them without any at all.
From here to Panguitch the road lies through stony country of the
prevalent exasperating type until we reach the precincts of the
settlement, heralded long before we reach it by miles of fencing that
enclose the grazing-land stretching down to the river. A detestable
road, broken up and swamped by irrigation channels, leads into the
settlement, and the poor impression thus received is not removed as we
pass through the treeless "streets" and among the unfenced lots. But
it is an interesting spot none the less, for apart from its future,
it is a good starting-point for many places of interest. But I should
like to have visited Red Lake and Panguitch Lake. "Panguitch," by the
way, means "fish" in the red man's language, and it is no wonder,
therefore, that at breakfast we enjoyed one of the most splendid dishes
of mountain-lake trout that was ever set before man. It is a great fish
certainly--and I prefer it broiled. To put any sauce to it is sheer
infamy.
The beaver, by the way, is still to be trapped here, and the grizzly
bear is not a stranger to Panguitch.
Looking out of the window in the evening, I saw a cart standing by
the roadside, and a number of men round it. Their demeanour aroused
my curiosity, for an extreme dejection had evidently marked them for
its own. Some sate in the road as if waiting in despair for Doomsday;
others prowled round the cart and leant in a melancholy manner against
it. The cart, it appeared, had come from St. George, the vine-growing
district in the south of the territory, and contained a cask of wine.
But as there was no licence in Panguitch for the sale of liquors, it
could not be broached! I never saw men look so wretchedly thirsty
in my life, and if glaring at the cask and thumping it could have
emptied it, there would not have been a drop left. It was a delightful
improvement upon the tortures of Tantalus, but the victims accepted the
joke as being against them, and though they watched the cart going away
gloomily enough, there was no ill-temper.
From Panguitch to Orderville, fifty miles, the scenery opens with
the dreary hills that had become so miserably familiar, alternating
with level pasture-lands, among which the serpentine Sevier winds a
curiously fantastic course. But gradually there grows upon the mind a
sense of coming change. Verdure creeps over the plains, and vegetation
steals on to the hill-sides, and then suddenly as if for a surprise,
the complete beauty of Long Valley bursts upon the traveller. I cannot
in a few words say more of it than that this valley--through which the
Rio Virgin flows, and in which the Family Communists of Orderville have
pitched their tents--rivals in its beauty the scenery of Cashmere.
Springing from a hill-side, beautiful with flowering shrubs and
instinct with bird life, the Virgin River trickles through a deep
meadow bright with blue iris plants and walled in on either side by
hills that are clothed with exquisite vegetation, and then, collecting
its young waters into a little channel, breaks away prattling into
the valley. Corn-fields and orchards, and meadows filled with grazing
kine, succeed each other in pleasant series, and on the right hand
and on the left the mountains lean proudly back with their loads of
magnificent pine. And other springs come tumbling down to join the
pretty river, which flows on, gradually widening as it goes, past
whirring saw-mills and dairies half buried among fruit-trees, through
park-like glades studded with pines of splendid girth, and pretty
brakes of berry-bearing trees all flushed with blossoms. And the valley
opens away on either side into grassy glens from which the tinkle of
cattle-bells falls pleasantly on the ear, or into bold canyons that
are draped close with sombre pines, and end in the most magnificent
cathedral cliffs of ruddy sandstone.
What lovely bits of landscape! What noble studies of rock architecture!
It is a very panorama of charms, and, travelled widely as I have, I
must confess to an absolute novelty of delight in this exquisite valley
of
THE ORDERVILLE BRETHREN.
Among the projects which occupied Joseph Smith's active brain was one
that should make the whole of the Mormon community a single family,
with a purse in common, and the head of the Church its head. In theory
they are so already. But Joseph Smith hoped to see them so in actual
practice also, and for this purpose--the establishment of a universal
family communism--he instituted "The Order of Enoch," or "The United
Order."
Why Enoch? The Mormons themselves appear to have no definite
explanation beyond the fact that Enoch was holy beyond all his
generation. But for myself, I see in it only another instance of
that curious sympathy with ancient tradition which Joseph Smith, and
after him Brigham Young, so consistently showed. They were both of
them as ignorant as men could be in the knowledge that comes from
books, and yet each of them must have had some acquaintance with the
mystic institutions of antiquity, or their frequent coincidence with
primitive ideas and schemes appears to me inexplicable. No man can in
these days think and act like an antediluvian by accident. Josephus
is, I find, a favourite author among the Mormons, and Josephus may
account for a little. Moreover, many of the Mormons, notably both
Presidents, are or were Freemasons, and this may account for some more.
But for the balance I can find no explanation. Now I remember reading
somewhere--perhaps in Sir Thomas Browne--that "the patriarchal Order
of Enoch" is an institution of prodigious antiquity; that Enoch in the
Hebrew means "the teacher;" that he was accepted in prehistoric days as
the founder of a self-supporting, pious socialism, which was destined
(should destruction overtake the world) to rescue one family at any
rate from the general ruin, and perpetuate the accumulated knowledge of
the past. And it is exactly upon these conditions that we find Joseph
Smith, fifty years ago, promulgating in a series of formulated rules,
the scheme of a patriarchal "Order of Enoch."
All Mormons are "elect." But even among the elect there is an
aristocracy of piety. Thus in Islam we find the Hajji faithful above
the faithful. In Hindooism the brotherhood of the Coolinsis accepted by
the gods above all the other "twice-born." Is it not, indeed, the same
in every religion--that there are the chosen within the chosen--"though
they were mighty men, yet they were not of the three"--a tenth legion
among the soldiers of Heaven--the archangels in the select ministry
of the Supreme? In Mormonism, therefore, if a man chooses, he may
consecrate himself to his faith more signally than his fellows, by
endowing the Church with all his goods, and accepting from the Church
afterwards the "stewardship" of a portion of his own property! It is
no mere lip-consecration, no Ritualists' "Order of Jesus," no question
of a phylactery. It means the absolute transfer of all property and
temporal interests, and of all rights of all kinds therein, to the
Church by a formal, legal process, and a duly attested deed. Here is
one:--
"Be it known by these presents, that I, Jesse W. Fox, of Great Salt
Lake City, in the county of Great Salt Lake, and territory of Utah,
for and in consideration of the sum of one hundred ($100) dollars and
the good-will which I have to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints, give and convey unto Brigham Young, trustee in trust for the
said Church, his successor in office and assigns, all my claims to and
ownership of the following-described property, to wit:
One house and lot . . . . . . . . . . . . $1000
One city lot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100
East half of lot 1, block 12 . . . . . . . . 50
Lot 1, block 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75
Two cows, $50; two calves, $15 . . . . . . . 65
One mare, $100; one colt, $50 . . . . . . . 150
One watch, $20; one clock, $12 . . . . . . . 32
Clothing, $300; beds and bedding, $125. . . 425
One stove, $20; household furniture, $210. .230
--
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2127
together with all the rights, privileges, and appurtenances thereunto
belonging or appertaining. I also covenant and agree that I am the
lawful claimant and owner of said property, and will warrant and for
ever defend the same unto the said trustee in trust, his successor in
office and assigns, against the claims of my heirs, assigns, or any
person whomsoever."
Then follows the attestation of the witness; and the formal certificate
of the Judge of the Probate Court that "the signer of the above
transfer, personally known to me, appeared the second day of April,
1857, and acknowledged that he, of his own choice, executed the
foregoing transfer."
Such transfers of property are not, I know, infrequent in other
religions, notably the Roman Catholic, but the object of the Mormon's
piety distinguishes his act from that of others. Had Brigham Young
persevered in his predecessor's project, it is almost certain that he
would have established a gigantic "company" that would have controlled
all the temporal interests of the territory, and eventually comprised
the whole Mormon population. It is just possible that he himself
foresaw that such success would be ruin; that the foundations of
the Order would sink under such a prodigious superstructure, for he
diverted his attention from the main to subsidiary schemes. Instead of
one central organization sending out colonies on all sides of it, he
advised the establishment of branch communities, which might eventually
be gathered together under a single headquarters' control. The two
projects were the same as to results; they differed only as to the
means; and the second was the more judicious.
A few individuals came forward in their enthusiasm to give all they
possessed to a common cause, but the Order flagged, though, nominally,
many joined it. Thus, travelling through the settlements, I have
seen in a considerable number of homes the Rules of the Order framed
upon the walls. At any time these would be curious; to-day, when the
morality of the principles of Mormonism is challenged, they are of
special interest:--
"RULES THAT SHOULD BE OBSERVED BY MEMBERS OF THE UNITED ORDER.
"We will not take the name of the Deity in vain, nor speak lightly of
His character or of sacred things.
"We will pray with our families morning and evening, and also attend to
secret prayer.
"We will observe and keep the Word of Wisdom according to the spirit
and the meaning thereof.
"We will treat our families with due kindness and affection, and
set before them an example worthy of imitation. In our families and
intercourse with all persons, we will refrain from being contentious or
quarrelsome, and we will cease to speak evil of each other, and will
cultivate a spirit of charity towards all. We consider it our duty to
keep from acting selfishly or from covetous motives, and will seek the
interest of each other and the salvation of all mankind.
"We will observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, in accordance with
the Revelations.
"That which is committed to our care we will not appropriate to our own
use.
"That which we borrow we will return according to promise, and that
which we find we will not appropriate to our own use, but seek to
return it to its proper owner.
"We will, as soon as possible, cancel all individual indebtedness
contracted prior to our uniting with the order, and, when once fully
identified with said order, will contract no debts contrary to the
wishes of the Board of Directors.
"We will patronize our brethren who are in the order.
"In our apparel and deportment we will not pattern after nor encourage
foolish and extravagant fashions, and cease to import or buy from
abroad any article which can be reasonably dispensed with, or which
can be produced by combination of home labour. We will foster and
encourage the producing and manufacturing of all articles needful for
our consumption as fast as our circumstances will permit.
"We will be simple in our dress and manner of living, using proper
economy and prudence in the management of all intrusted to our care.
"We will combine our labour for mutual benefit, sustain with our faith,
prayers, and works those whom we have elected to take the management of
the different departments of the order, and be subject to them in their
official capacity, refraining from a spirit of fault-finding.
"We will honestly and diligently labour and devote ourselves and all we
have to the order and to the building up Of the Kingdom of God."
Under these general regulations a great number, as I have said,
enrolled themselves, and they may be considered therefore to
constitute, as it were, a Knight Templar commandery within a
Fellowcraft lodge. All are "brethren;" these are illustrious brethren.
All are pashas; these are "of many tails." All are mandarins of heaven;
these wear the supreme button.
But the temporal object of the Order was not served by such transfers
of moral obligations; by the hypothecation of personal piety; by
the investment of spiritual principles in a common fund. You cannot
get much working capital out of mortgages on a man's soul. Calchas
complained bitterly when the Athenian public paid their vows to the
goddess in squashes. The collector, he said, would not take them in
payment of the water-rates. So it has fared with the Order of Enoch. It
is wealthy in good intentions, and if promises were dollars could draw
large checks.
Here and there, however, local fervour took practical shape. The Kings
of Kingston planted their family flag on the wind-swept Circleville
plain. At Sunset another communistic colony was established, and in
Long Valley, in the canyons of the Rio Virgin, was inaugurated the
"United Order of Orderville."
Situated in a beautiful valley that needs nothing more added to it to
make its inhabitants entirely self-supporting; directed and controlled
with as much business shrewdness as fervent piety; supported by its
members with a sensible regard for mutual interests--this Orderville
experiment bids fair to be a signal success. In their Articles Of
Association the members call themselves a Corporation which is "to
continue in existence for a period of twenty-five years," and of which
the objects are every sort of "rightful" enterprise and industry that
may render the Order independent of outside produce and manufactures,
"consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the laws of
this Territory." Its capital is fixed at $100,000, in 10,000 shares of
$10 each, and the entire control of its affairs is vested in a board
of nine directors, who are elected by a ballot of the whole community.
Article 13 "the individual or private property of the states that
stockholders shall not be liable for the debts or obligations of the
company." Article 15 is as follows: "The directors shall have the
right and power to declare dividends on said stock whenever, in their
judgment, there are funds for that purpose due and payable."
Now, in these two last articles lie the saving principles of the
Orderville scheme, Hitherto, from the beginning of the world,
experiments in communism have always split upon this rock, namely,
that individuality was completely crushed out. No man was permitted
to possess "private" property--he was l'enfant de la République, body
and soul--and no man, therefore, had sufficient personal identity
to make it possible for individual profits to accrue to him. And
so the best of the young men--let the experiment be at any date in
history you like--became dissatisfied with the level at which they
were kept, and they seceded. They insisted on having names of their
own, and refused to be merely, like the members of a jail republic,
known by numbers. Individuality and identity are the original data
of human consciousness. They are the first solid facts which a baby
masters and communicates; they are the last that old age surrenders to
infirmity and death. But in Orderville, it will be seen, the notion of
"private" property exists. It is admitted that there is such a thing
as "individual" ownership. Moreover, it is within the power of the
board to pay every man a dividend. This being the case, this particular
experiment in communism has the possibility of great success, for its
members are not utterly deprived of all individuality. They have some
shreds of it left to them.
To become a member of the Order there is no qualification of property
necessary. The aged and infirm are accepted in charity. Indeed, at one
time they threatened to swamp the family altogether, for the brethren
seemed to have set out with a dead-weight upon them heavier than they
could bear. But this has righted itself. The working members have got
the ship round again, and in one way or another a place and a use has
been found for every one. Speaking generally, however, membership
meant the holding of stock in the corporation. If a man wished to
join the Order, he gave in to the Bishop a statement of his effects.
It was left to his conscience that this statement should be complete
and exhaustive; that there should be no private reservations. These
effects--whatever they might be, from a farm in another part of the
Territory to the clothes in his trunk--were appraised by the regular
staff, and the equivalent amount in stock, at $10 a share, was issued
to them. From that time his ownership in his property ceased. His books
would perhaps go into the school-house library, his extra blankets next
door, his horse into a neighbour's team. According to his capacities,
also, he himself fell at once into his place among the workers, going
to the woollen factory or the carpenter's shop, the blacksmith's forge
or the dairy, the saw-mills or the garden, the grist-mill or the
farm, according as his particular abilities gave promise of his being
most useful. His work here would result, as far as he was personally
concerned, in no profits. But he was assured of a comfortable house,
abundant food, good clothes. The main responsibilities of life were
therefore taken off his shoulders. The wolf could never come to his
door. He and his were secured against hunger and cold. But beyond
this? There was only the approbation of his companions, the reward
of his conscience. With the proceeds of his labour, or by the actual
work of his own hands, he saw new buildings going up, new acres coming
under cultivation. But none of them belonged to him. He never became a
proprietor, an owner, a master. While therefore he was spared the worst
responsibilities of life, he was deprived of its noblest ambitions.
He lived without apprehensions, but without hopes too. If his wife
was ill or his children sickly, there were plenty of kind neighbours
to advise and nurse and look after them. No anxieties on such matters
need trouble him. But if he had any particular taste--music, botany,
anything--he was unable to gratify it, unless these same kindly
neighbours agreed to spend from the common fund in order to buy him
a violin or a flower-press--and they could hardly be expected to
do so. Quite apart from the fact that a man learning to play a new
instrument is an enemy of his kind, you could not expect a community of
graziers, farmers, and artisans to be unanimously enthusiastic about
the musical whims of one of their number, still less for his "crank"
in collecting "weeds"--as everything that is not eatable (or is not a
rose) is called in most places of the West. Tastes, therefore, could
not be cultivated for the want of means, and any special faculties
which members might individually possess were of necessity kept in
abeyance. Amid scenery that might distract an artist, and fossil and
insect treasures enough to send men of science crazy, the community
can do nothing in the direction of Art or of Natural History, unless
they all do it together. For the Order cannot spare a man who may be a
good ploughman, to go and sit about in the canyons painting pictures
of pine-trees and waterfalls. Nor can it spare the money that may be
needed for shingles in buying microscopes for a "bug-hunter." The
common prosperity, therefore, can only be gained at a sacrifice of all
individual tastes. This alone is a very serious obstacle to success of
the highest kind. But in combination with this is of course the more
general and formidable fact that even in the staple industries of the
community individual excellence brings with it no individual benefits.
A moral trades-unionism planes all down to a level. It does not, of
course, prevent the enthusiast working his very hardest and best in
the interests of his neighbours. But such enthusiasm is hardly human.
Men will insist, to the end of all time, on enjoying the reward of
their own labours, the triumphs of their own brains. Some may go so
far as nominally to divide their honours with all their friends. But
where shall we look for the man who will go on all his life toiling
successfully for the good of idler folks, and checking his own free
stride to keep pace with their feebler steps? And this is the rock on
which all such communities inevitably strike.
Security from the ordinary apprehensions of life; a general protection
against misfortune and "bad seasons;" the certainty of having all the
necessaries of existence, are sufficient temptations for unambitious
men. But the stronger class of mind, though attracted to it by piety,
and retained for a while by a sincere desire to promote the common
good, must from their very nature revolt against a permanent alienation
of their own earnings, and a permanent subordination of their own
merits. At Orderville, therefore, we find the young men already
complaining of a system which does not let them see the fruits of their
work. Their fathers' enthusiasm brought them there as children. Seven
years later they are grown up into independent-minded young men. They
have not had experience of family anxieties yet. All they know is, that
beyond Orderville there are larger spheres of work, and more brilliant
opportunities for both hand and head.
Fortunately, however, for Orderville, the articles of incorporation
give the directors the very powers that are necessary, and if these
are exercised the ship may miss the rock that has wrecked all its
predecessors. If they can declare dividends, open private accounts, and
realize the idea of personal property, the difference in possibilities
between the outer world and Orderville will be very greatly reduced,
while the advantage of certainties in Orderville will be even further
increased. Young men would then think twice about going away, and
any one if he chose could indulge his wife with a piano or himself
with a box of water-colours. Herein then lies the hopefulness of
the experiment; and fortunately Mr. Howard Spencer, the President
of the community, has all the generosity to recognize the necessity
for concession to younger ambition, and all the courage to institute
and carry out a modification of communism which shall introduce more
individuality. I anticipate, therefore, that this very remarkable and
interesting colony will survive the "twenty-five years" period for
which it was established, and will encourage the foundation of many
other similar "Family Orders."
Seven years have passed since Mr. Spencer pitched his camp in the
beautiful wilderness of the Rio Virgin canyons. He found the hills
of fine building-stone, their sides thickly grown with splendid pine
timber, and down the valley between them flowing a bright and ample
stream. The vegetation by its variety and luxuriance gave promise of
a fertile soil; some of the canyons formed excellent natural meadows,
while just over the ridge, a mile or two from the settlement, lay a
bed of coal. Finally, the climate was delightfully temperate! Every
condition of success, therefore, was found together, and prosperity
has of course responded to the voice of industry. Acre by acre the
wild gardens have disappeared, and in their place stand broad fields
of corn; the tangled brakes of wild-berry plants have yielded their
place to orchards of finer fruits; cattle and sheep now graze in
numbers where the antelope used to feed; and from slope to slope you
can hear among the pines, above the idle crooning of answering doves
and the tinkling responses of wandering kine, the glad antiphony of the
whirring saw-mill and the busy loom.
The settlement itself is grievously disappointing in appearance. For
as you approach it, past the charming little hamlet of Glendale, past
such a sunny wealth of orchard and meadow and corn-land, past such
beautiful glimpses of landscape, you cannot help expecting a scene of
rural prettiness in sympathy with such surroundings. But Orderville
at first sight looks like a factory. The wooden shed-like buildings
built in continuous rows, the adjacent mills, the bare, ugly patch of
hillside behind it, give the actual settlement an uninviting aspect.
But once within the settlement, the scene changes wonderfully for the
better. The houses are found, the most of them, built facing inwards
upon an open square, with a broad side-walk, edged with tamarisk
and mulberry, box-elder and maple-trees, in front of them. Outside
the dwelling-house square are scattered about the school-house,
meeting-house, blacksmith and carpenters' shops, tannery, woollen-mill,
and so forth, while a broad roadway separates the whole from the
orchards, gardens, and farm-lands generally. Specially noteworthy
here are the mulberry orchard--laid out for the support of the
silk-worms, which the community are now rearing with much success--and
the forcing-ground and experimental garden, in which wild flowers as
well as "tame" are being cultivated. Among the buildings the more
interesting to me were the school-houses, well fitted up, and very
fairly provided with educational apparatus; and the rudimentary museum,
where the commencement of a collection of the natural curiosities of
the neighbourhood is displayed. What this may some day grow into, when
science has had the chance of exploring the surrounding hills and
canyons, it is difficult to say; for Nature has favoured Orderville
profusely with fossil strata and mineral eccentricities, a rich variety
of bird and insect life, and a prodigious botanical luxuriance. Almost
for the first time in my travels, too, I found here a very intelligent
interest taken in the natural history of the locality; but the absence
of books and of necessary apparatus, as yet of course prevents the
brethren from carrying on their studies and experiments to any standard
of scientific value.
Though staying in Orderville so short a time, I was fortunate enough
to see the whole community together. For on the evening of my arrival
there was a meeting at which there was a very full gathering of the
adults--and the babies in arms. The scene was as curious as anything I
have ever witnessed in any part of the world. The audience was almost
equally composed of men and women, the latter wearing, most of them,
their cloth sun-bonnets, and bringing with them the babies they were
nursing.
Brigham Young used to encourage mothers to bring them, and said that he
liked to hear them squalling in the Tabernacle. Whether he really liked
it or not, the mothers did as he said, and the babies too, and the
perpetual bleating of babies from every corner of the building makes it
seem to this day as if religious service was being held in a sheepfold.
Throughout the proceedings at Orderville babies were being constantly
handed across from mother to neighbour and back from neighbour
to mother. Others were being tossed up and down with that jerky,
perpendicular motion which seems so soothing to the very young, but
which reminded me of the popping up and down of the hammers when the
"lid" of a piano is lifted up during a performance. But the baby is an
irrepressible person, and at Orderville has it very much its own way.
The Apostle's voice in prayer was accepted as a challenge to try their
lungs, and the music (very good, by the way) as a mere obligato to
their own vocalization. The patient gravity of the mothers throughout
the whole performance, and the apparent indifference of the men, struck
me as very curious--for I come from a country where one baby will
plunge a whole church congregation into profanity, and where it is
generally supposed that two crying together would empty heaven. Of the
men of Orderville I can say sincerely that a healthier, more stalwart
community I have never seen, while among the women, I saw many refined
faces, and remarked that robust health seemed the rule. Next morning
the children were paraded, and such a brigade of infantry as it was!
Their legs (I think, though, they are known as "limbs" in America) were
positively columnar, and their chubby little owners were as difficult
to keep quietly in line as so much quicksilver. Orderville boasts that
it is self-supporting and independent of outside help, and certainly in
the matter of babies there seems no necessity for supplementing home
manufactures by foreign imports. The average of births is as yet five
in each family during the six years of the existence of the Order! Two
were born the day I arrived.
Unfortunately one of the most characteristic features of this family
community was in abeyance during my visit--the common dining-table. For
a rain-flood swept through the gorge above the settlement last winter
and destroyed "the bakery." Since then the families have dined apart or
clubbed together in small parties, but the wish of the majority is to
see the old system revived, for though they live well now, they used,
they say, to live even better when "the big table" was laid for its 200
guests at once.
Self-supporting and well-directed, therefore, the Orderville
"communists" bid fair to prove to the world that pious enthusiasm,
if largely tempered with business judgment, can make a success of an
experiment which has hitherto baffled all attempts based upon either
one or the other alone.