UNCLE DAVID.
Mrs. Weston was tired and sat down in her rocking-chair to rest. Her
day’s work was fairly over. The breakfast had been ready punctually at
half past five, and it was well-cooked, as she had boasted it would
be—corn-bread smoking hot, fried chicken, potatoes, flap-jacks and
molasses—a meal for a king, to say nothing of a working-man and his
negro help. Ezra and Napoleon Pompey had partaken heartily, especially
the latter, for he had been living on underdone hoe-cake and cold pork.
Then they had gone off to the ploughing, while Olive had bustled around
and got forward with her house-work. At eleven o’clock she had run up
the towel against the shady side of the house, a signal easily seen from
the distant field, and signifying that dinner was ready. They had come
home, men and horses thoroughly hungry and ready for food and rest. Ezra
lay on the kitchen floor and talked to her while she washed up the
dishes. And now it was three o’clock, and all the work was done. She
thought she would read a little. She had several books with her that she
had been looking forward to reading. So she took up one of them and
seated herself comfortably in the rocking-chair. The door was open and a
warm air came in from the south along with the gleaming sunshine. Diana
lay across the door-way, but kept one eye open, so as to see when the
black hen came near enough to have a spring at her with any chance of
grabbing a mouthful of tail-feathers. Olive’s eyes rested very little on
the book, but much on the view outside. It looked pleasant enough in the
bright May sunshine. The long brown patch of the garden showed a few
methodical green lines that spoke of vegetables beginning to sprout. The
meadow of blue grass just beyond was likewise by its hue showing the
on-coming of the warm spring weather, and yet again further off, on the
other side of the meadow, lay the vast field which her husband was
ploughing. Once in every half hour she could see him turn at the
head-land, and noted how seldom he seemed to stop and rest. Napoleon
Pompey was riding the off leader, and from that distance they seemed
little insects gently crawling backwards and forwards across the land.
Pleasant it looked too and by no means hard work. Olive determined to go
out to the field one day soon and watch the process from a nearer point
of view; she might indeed herself hold the plough-handles, it looked
easy, she would ask Ezra to let her, she would like to learn to do all
sorts of work so as to be very useful, she would—confused images swept
slowly over her mind, she leaned back her pretty little head and slept
in her chair.
She awoke with a start. A large square figure stood in the door-way,
blocking out the sunshine, and Diana, with the insane friendliness of a
puppy, was trying to clamber up one of his legs.
“Well, little gal, I reckon you’re ’most tired out, ain’t you?” said the
big man, coming straight into the room.
Mrs. Weston rose to her utmost height of five feet two inches, and tried
to be dignified.
“Do you wish to see my husband?” she inquired stiffly.
“No, I don’t want to see Ezry. I come to talk to you a spell, and see
you.”
“You are very kind I’m sure,” returned the little lady icily, but the
stranger did not seem one whit abashed. He took a nail-keg and sat down
on it and looked about him. “Wal, now,” he remarked, nodding his head,
“Ezry is real downright handy. He’s gone and got your house fine and
fixed up, ain’t he now?”
“It is extremely comfortable, Mr.—ah—I don’t think you mentioned your
name,” said Mrs. Weston, with a snap of her black eyes. She didn’t at
all relish the free and easy way in which this man spoke of her husband.
“Do tell!” exclaimed the stranger with vast cordiality. “An’ you didn’t
know who I was. Why, I’m Uncle David. I guessed everybody ’ud know me.
There ain’t nobody else so big and awkward looking ’bout here on this
prairie as me. Why, there was a man over to Perfection City yesterday,
he come from beyond Cotton Wood Creek, and he said he calculated I’d be
powerful useful on washing days, ’cause if they tied the clothes-line to
me I’d do instead of a pole, an’ timber is mighty scarce anyhow.”
Uncle David gave a long loud laugh that set Diana into an ecstasy of
delight, and was of itself so joyous that, after a moment, Olive also
joined in with a merry titter. She had often heard her husband speak of
Uncle David, as being one of the kindest and most simple-hearted of men.
Her frigid manner melted rapidly and completely.
“Wal, now,” began Uncle David again, after his merriment had subsided,
“how do you like our name?”
“Your name,” repeated Olive considerably puzzled.
“No, our name, the name of the Community, Perfection City. Do you like
it?”
“I don’t think I do,” replied she.
“Jes’ so,” broke in Uncle David, apparently much pleased with this
answer. “I knew you wouldn’t. Nobody does.”
“Why did you call it such a name—such a horrid name—and if nobody likes
it, what is the use?”
“There now, that’s what they all say, until I talk to ’em,” said Uncle
David. “You see I gave the name to the place.”
“Oh, it was your choice!” said Olive.
“When we came here, Niece and I, there wasn’t no town nor nothing, it
was just open prairie. Ezry he come along too with us, and the
Carpenters, and Mrs. Ruby, and the Wrights.”
“You leave out Madame Morozoff-Smith,” interrupted Olive.
“I thought you knew. Why, Madame, she’s Niece. She ain’t my real niece,
she wasn’t born in my family, but she’s niece by adoption, and I hold
she’s more to me than half the nieces I ever seen. I ain’t cute like
most of the folks here, an’ there wasn’t no use in having me at
Perfection City. I can’t do nothing. I can’t compose papers like Brother
Wright. So I was studyin’ to see some way for me to come with ’em. It
would ha’ broke my heart to be left behind. Madame, she come to me, an’
says she: ‘You’ll be my uncle. I want an uncle very much, and I’ll love
you dearly.’ An’ so I was. I call it the greatest honour of my life when
Madame made me her uncle, and added my name to hers.” Uncle David
stooped and patted Diana’s head thoughtfully.
“When did you think of the name?” said Olive with a view to bringing him
back to the point.
“Yes, jes’ so, that’s ’xactly what I was comin’ to. You see, when Ezry
fust come here with us he wasn’t quite clear in his mind ’bout joinin’
in with us, leastways not to be one of the Community for his whole
mortal life. It’s a serious step to take, and he was a-doubtin’ in his
mind, leastways till Madame she talked to him for a spell. He wasn’t
sure fust if he’d got a call to community-life. He knowed it was the
best, of course, and the true life: he knowed all that right enough, but
he didn’t feel sure of himself as bein’ fit to found a city. It is a
most responsible thing to be a founder. ’Taint everybody as is fit for
it. Then Madame made it clear how she was a founder, an’ she is the most
wonderful woman ever lived in this world, an’ she showed Ezry how it was
his duty to help in this great work, an’ when he saw that clear he was
dreadful sot on it too. We was a-gettin’ our houses up as spry as ever
we could, and ole Wright he was a-buildin’ th’ Academy, then Ezry says:
‘What’s goin’ to be our name?’ It was jes’ called Weddell’s Gully,
’cause we bought from a man o’ that name. So Ezry said: ‘Let’s call it
something to signify our principles,’ and one person said one name and
one said another, then Wright said ‘Let’s call it Teleiopolis.’”
“Oh, that sounds very pretty,” exclaimed Olive. “Why didn’t you?”
“Wal, now, I said that’s very pretty, jes’ the same as you did. What
does it mean, do you know?”
“No, I don’t know. I suppose it is Greek for something.”
“’Zactly so. It is Greek for something, and that something is Perfection
City.”
“It sounds nicer.”
“Maybe so, but you look here. Are we Greeks?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then why talk in Greek?”
“I don’t know, except it is prettier.”
“Do you suppose them old Greeks, when they went an’ founded cities, they
called ’em names out o’ some other language they didn’t understand, or
did they called ’em good solid Greek names as any little boy ’ud know
what they meant?” asked Uncle David with rising energy.
“I believe they called their cities by Greek names, in fact I know they
did,” said Olive, hastily reviewing her stock of history.
“An’ why?” asked Uncle David.
“I don’t know.”
“Because they wasn’t ’shamed o’ their mother tongue like we are. That’s
why,” said Uncle David, clapping his big hand on his knee.
“Oh indeed,” said Olive.
“An’ that’s what I said, says I, ‘We are ’Mericans, we are founding a
new city that’s goin’ to be great things one day. We have our
principles. Let’s live up to them. We hain’t shamed o’ nothin’.
Leastways not to my knowledge. We are goin’ to be an example to these
folks roun’ here. We are goin’ to show ’em how to live a better life nor
they ever did before. An’ how in thunder can we do that if we start by
being ’shamed of our own mother tongue? We hain’t Greeks, we don’t talk
in Greek. This hain’t Teleiopolis, this is Perfection City.’ That is
what I said to ’em.”
“What did they say to that?” asked Olive, much interested in the rugged
honesty of Uncle David.
“Wal, I don’t know as they said anything much, on’y Ezry, he said he
guessed he’d had his fust lesson, an’ he come and shook hands an’ said
it certainly should be Perfection City, an’ so it was.”
“I shall think better of the name now,” said Olive. “Only at first I was
afraid of people laughing, people who didn’t understand it, you see.”
“Oh, people’ll laugh,” said Uncle David. “People does a heap o’ laughing
in this world without makin’ it one mite merrier for anybody. I like
laughing myself. It’s awful good an’ satisfyin’ to have a real square
laugh, but t’aint that sort. Mos’ folks’ laugh hain’t got no more fun in
it than the laugh of a hoot-owl. I’d a heap sight rather have none at
all. You ain’t agoin’ to mind that sort, I hope?” Uncle David spoke with
a shade of anxiety in his manner.
“Oh no, I’m not thin-skinned,” said Olive with a superior smile.
“Some folks is made that way. When they have found a tender spot in
anybody they can’t rest no how till they’ve stuck some sort o’ pin into
it.”
“Tell me, does everything belong to everybody generally out here? It is
so puzzling. This house, for instance, is it ours or yours or
everybody’s?” asked Olive.
“The land an’ the horses an’ the cattle an’ waggons was mostly bought
with community-money, that is Madame, she gave the money, she’s rich you
know, an’ she’s generous and always givin’ to the Community, her whole
heart is in it. But Ezry worked a heap on this house, he mostly built it
all, an’ it’s his, an’ t’other folks’ houses are theirs. That’s Brother
Wright’s over yonder, an’ that’s our house beside the ’Cademy, most
everybody worked to get it up and fix it comfortable for Madame. Old
Mrs. Ruby, she lives to herself in the log cabin we bought from Weddell,
we had it moved there a purpose over from the Gully, ’cause she liked to
live beside the spring so as to get her water handy. She had a little
mite of money which we used in buyin’ stock.”
“So you do have some things as private property, just like ordinary
people,” observed Olive.
“Of course. It would not be any sort o’ use to have everything in
common, ’cause folks’ notions don’t always ’xactly suit. An’ what we
want is to have everybody free, so they can be perfectly happy here. We
don’t want to have no strife, an’ no jealousy, an’ no ill feeling one
towards another. But there can’t be community in all things. What sort
o’ use would it be for you an’ me to have community o’ boots an’ shoes?”
said Uncle David with a great laugh, sticking out his enormous foot
towards where Olive’s dainty little slipper peeped from beneath her
dress.
“Your shoes, my dear, wouldn’t go on my two fingers, an’ mine ’ud be big
enough to make a tol’eble boat for you. There couldn’t be community in
shoes, so there ain’t none. But with the lan’ it’s different. We all
work that for the benefit of everybody, there ain’t no strugglin’ to be
fust an’ get ahead o’ one another. We are all brothers at Perfection
City.”
Olive was full of excitement when Ezra came back at sun-down.
“Just fancy, I’ve had my first visitor,” she said as she stood beside
her husband while he was watering the horses.
“Who was it? Mrs. Ruby?”
“No, it was Uncle David,” and she gave a merry little laugh.
“Well, and how did you like him?”
“I think he is just charming. He is just like a piece of granite or oak
or something of that sort, not smooth or shiny on the outside, but solid
and sound to the very core. Oh! I shall love Uncle David.”
“That’s right. He is a good man,” said Ezra.
“And you know? he has made me understand about Perfection City. I shan’t
want to laugh at it any more, and I don’t care if anybody else does. It
was real brave of you showing your colours plain and sticking to them,”
said Olive with a skip and a clap of her little hands.