CHAPTER XVI.
MISS CAROLINE WOODBERRY AGAIN—THE WEST PARISH—PUBLICATION OF MISS WOODBERRY’S NOVEL—MARRIAGE—WE VISIT NEW ENGLAND.
Long before the year 1904 drew to its close a great change had taken place in my life. The feminine disposition of my aunt to make matrimonial matches had been successful in throwing me into the society of Miss Caroline Woodberry and after the ride to Canyon Lake, of which I have already made mention, I was with her whenever leisure and opportunity permitted.
In Co-opolis there were in all seasons amusements and entertainments of every kind, and if we tired of one we were not at a loss for diversion which, while it could not increase the happiness I found in the young lady’s society, aided me in administering to her pleasure. Society in Co-opolis was even then refined and intelligent. I do not mean to leave the impression that our people had in six years acquired all the arts and foibles which fashionable society in eastern cities mistake for refinement, but it really was wonderful to see what improvement prosperity had produced in the manner, bearing and language of most of our people. While it is possible that such prosperity in the competitive system, would have caused many to develop the worst traits of their character, yet the absence of all opportunity to amass a fortune in speculation or by gambling methods in the co-operative system insured to each the enjoyment of his own portion. Nobody was or could be purse proud. Nobody was or could be dependent upon charity. Nobody had occasion to be ashamed of his material condition.
Good clothes, ornaments, books, pleasant homes and all the conveniences of modern life were within the reach of all.
Humanity is so constituted, however, that its members must compete, contend and battle with one another.
What shall be the field for this competition? Over what shall the race contend? Where shall be the battle ground?
Some philosophers in times past taught that the race must fall into decay, dwindle into weakness and lose individuality if it was removed from the struggle for potatoes, meat and coffee. They, perhaps, honestly believed that it was fatal to progress to raise mankind to an elevated plane and let the battle be waged for moral, intellectual and perhaps spiritual supremacy. In Co-opolis our system eliminated the mere material world as an object of competition, and pursuing the law of our nature, we sought to excel in intellectual pursuits, matters of taste, athletics and what tended to personal improvement. It was not long before the Co-opolitan began to be known as being possessed of good manners, taste in matters of dress and even polish. These were not pronounced characteristics for many years after, but I sometimes thought I could see them developing. One people from whom, in part, at least, the incentive to acquire and own things had been largely removed, lost in a measure the cheating, lying, cunning and overreaching habits of that delusive and obstructing thing called business. Co-opolitans, six years after the city was founded, habitually told one another the truth.
Sets and circles existed then, as now, in Co-opolitan society. Men and women always will choose their own companions and some common interest will always operate to form them into associations. If some of the potato diggers discover that potato digging is not all there is of life those will probably come to recognize in one another kindred spirits whose kinship is closer than that of the uninitiated and the circle is evolved. I was one of a circle or set and Miss Woodberry was a member of that circle, too. There were literary gatherings, card parties, socials and all sorts of meetings in winter, and lawn parties, dinners, dances and all sorts of pleasures in summer. It must be admitted that our social circle was generally regarded as somewhat select in a literary sense, because some of the brightest minds in Co-opolis were members. This did not exclude us from the pleasures which I have mentioned, but it gave our circle a somewhat sombre rather than gay reputation. We were just as popular, however, as any other set, and by no means assumed to be better than our neighbors.
Miss Woodberry was not a member of the Industrial Army, and one of the great questions which we often discussed was whether she should become such. This question grew more than ever urgent when we decided that we were sufficiently attached to each other to become husband and wife. Attached to each other! That sounds and reads mechanical enough to describe the gluing together of two blocks of wood, and I have no doubt that because this is, in the main, an historical work and only incidentally biographical, it is all the warmth I am expected to express. I beg pardon! But this lady has been my wife now thirty years and a better wife no mortal man ever had. Attached to her! Why! I was so thoroughly and passionately devoted to her that I came very near incurring the censure of my department associates and being subjected to the operation of the Imperative Mandate on the charge of inattention to business, but escaped, because, as I suppose, “the whole world loves a lover,” and my attachment was not successfully concealed. Be that as it may, after we were engaged to be married, Miss Woodberry became curious to know what her fate would be; she had accepted me without much regard to consequences. Now, after the acceptance, when the consequences were close at hand, she became more solicitous to understand her position. She had only been a visitor in Co-opolis and had been a guest of the Prestons, whom I have already described as my near neighbors. During this visit she had been engaged in writing a novel, which she read as the chapters were completed to me. I was impressed with its merit and believed some of its passages breathed the spirit of genius. However, although I judged myself a dispassionate and unsparing critic, I would not trust my judgment upon the production of one who was prejudiced in her favor. I persuaded her to allow me to submit her manuscript to a committee of my department for its criticism, with a view to arranging for its publication under the auspices of the Co-opolitan Association. As this committee had proven whenever it deemed a work sufficiently meritorious to warrant it, to proceed with its publication and defray the expenses from the so-called publication fund, it occurred to me that, if my judgment should be approved, this novel could be published by our department and would distinguish the admission of its author into the Association. We had, up to that time, never undertaken the publication of a novel, but our plant was sufficiently extensive and commodious to enable us to do so. Hitherto we were contented to confine our publications to text books for our schools, a monthly magazine devoted to co-operation, the Daily Co-opolitan and a large number of pamphlets. To my great joy the committee, composed of the very brightest literary men in the city, including our educational chief, Mr. Edmunds, pronounced it a production of such merit as to be worthy of publication at the public expense. I had not disclosed to them the name of the author and they supposed it was some member.
On the evening of the day when this decision was communicated to me I went over to the Preston cottage to see my affianced and tell her the result of my venture with the committee. She was delighted with the news. It was her first novel, and to find that the committee had received it with favor was an event which, as she often told me, gave her more genuine pleasure than anything ever did before or has since. We spent an hour or more that evening talking over the novel, its characters and plot.
The name was “The West Parish.” The opening scene was laid in the West Parish of Gloucester, Cape Ann, Essex County, Massachusetts. There were, as everybody knows, wonderful descriptions of white sandy beaches, the blue old ocean, ships sailing, marshes and sea birds a-wing. There were two little boys and an old aunt. The former were orphans, the latter infirm and impoverished, but doing her best, which was as bad as could be, to keep the little ones alive. Their father had been a railroad engineer, but a series of misfortunes deprived him of his savings, and then, in one of the perils common to his dangerous employment, he was killed and the mother soon after died.
These little ones, without means and without the sympathy of the multitudes, who, in their desperation in the struggle for bread, forgot or did not see them, were sent to this aunt. That poor old woman had griefs enough of her own. Her life was well nigh worked out. She had neither nerves nor strength. Her limbs were stiff and rheumatic. Her eyes were dim and her aged back was bent. In her mean little cottage by the roadside at Annisquan she had all she could do to nurse the fading embers of her life’s fires, and she was now expected to support these two little infants, one three and one five years of age. She was cross to them, but she did not mean to be. She was very impatient and she did not know it. She did not take them into her arms as a mother would, but that never occurred to her. And yet she loved them, but the power of expressing love had long been crushed out by poverty.
So one day these two ragged, half-fed little boys, with their tear-bestained cheeks and great eyes, made more expressive by being set in the pale faces pinched by want, started out from the old aunt’s house in search of a place their mother used to tell them about which was called Heaven, where she said their papa was. The children were afterward found nearly starved to death lying near the roadside seven miles from home by some charitably disposed persons, who fed them and subsequently caused them to be placed in an orphan asylum, where they were kept and given a meagre education suitable to their lowly financial condition. When they were large and strong enough they were sent to the West and placed in the charge of farmers, but were widely separated. The author traced the development of each. Both were naturally possessed of powerful minds. One became a money maker, the other the champion of a new system for the development of his race. One was a great banker and amassed millions. The other was a great co-operator and occupied a high station in the Co-operative Commonwealth. She carried her story into the future that she might picture conditions which had not yet obtained.
In those days it was a favorite method of illustrating economic principles, and had been made quite fashionable by Bellamy’s famous work called “Looking Backward.” Miss Woodberry’s novel was not so remarkable for its plot as for the vivid contrast which it presented between the competitive and co-operative system, and so powerfully did her pen draw the picture that while the brother who gave his life to the one, though not worse than most of its supporters, seemed possessed of a demon of greed; the brother who gave his life to the other appeared to be no more nor less than a man. This novel seemed to me then, as it does now, both instructive and artistic and equal to any of those which my wife has written since.
“What shall we do now?” asked Miss Woodberry. “You have obtained a favorable criticism and the Association will publish the novel. What advantage will it give me or you to do so?”
“I shall urge you first to make an application for membership,” I replied. “Although you were not a citizen of Idaho nor a member of the National Brotherhood, you will find that your accomplishments and this novel will gain you immediate admission.”
“Yes!” exclaimed she. “But what else? Does not the Co-opolitan Association provide for some reward for a meritorious work?”
“The Co-opolitan Association will endeavor to be just,” I replied. “In the case of Dupont, the man who invented the Dupont motorcycle, which has brought us a large accession of wealth, the Legislative Council has allowed him a five years’ furlough and he is now traveling in Europe, but draws his full pay on the Industrial Army. Dupont has decided to take only one year now and then the rest of his time hereafter. Then there is Dr. James, who received a furlough of three months and an advance of $1,200.00 from his next three years’ pay, for special merit and extraordinary services of a professional character. We have a system of rewarding those who display special merit or who by some new invention add to the wealth, comfort or power of the Association.
“Our Legislative Council requests each department chief to present, every three months, the names of members most deserving of reward, and after fully and fairly informing themselves as to the work, art or production recommended, dispenses its rewards according to its best judgment. At the last meeting of the Legislative Council for this purpose ten men in my department were rewarded. One got six weeks rest, another two months, a third one week and others various terms of respite. This was in addition to the vacation. I am not in the habit of selecting these ten myself. I leave that to my foreman and in doing so avoid jealousies. I shall not recommend you, but I believe this novel will suggest to the Legislative Council the propriety of a reward.”
This reference to her entering some department suggested the old discussion again of whether she would apply or not. She was very much attached to the Association and believed it would ultimately own the entire state, but she was not sure, she said, that she ought to become absorbed in it. We considered that we might marry and that I could supply the house from my income and she could, if her novel was successful from a financial point of view, do other literary work at home and for ourselves. But she was not committed to this view, nor were her opinions fixed. However, she finally agreed with me in the belief that her life could be made far more useful as a member than as an individual. We agreed that if both were employed by the Association our united efforts would bring us twenty-four hundred dollars a year so long as twelve hundred dollars was each member’s income. I had long before converted all the property which I had inherited into cash of the gold and silver kind and had turned it over to the Association with the understanding that I would be permitted to withdraw it in amounts not greater than $1,200.00 per annum, if I so desired. The Association paid nothing for its use, but agreed to furnish, on the terms stated, goods, wares, labor checks or orders instead of money, or even money, if the proper affidavit and application for money was filed.
Aunt Lydia had also been economical in expenditures for the house, so that my expenses for two years had only been two thousand dollars, and I had a thousand dollars in unexpended labor-credit checks. This was also left with the Association, undrawn, so that the Association was indebted to me in the sum of $11,000.00. My affianced wife, as well as myself, was anxious to visit Europe and Asia, and this fund of $11,000.00 we calculated would enable us to do so without pinching ourselves while abroad. It was not possible to pinch ourselves at home, because at this time every department was accomplishing wonders in the production of wealth.
Caroline made her application the next day. Being neither a citizen of Idaho nor a member of the Brotherhood, she was obliged to pass an examination as to health, opinions and wealth. The first was found to be perfect. The second showed her to be fully acquainted with co-operative principles and the main features of our peculiar system. Wealth she had none. But she had what was better than wealth. She had talent. She had education. She had some experience in teaching and was a skillful stenographer. She was accepted and enrolled in the Educational department. This was in June and her services were not required until September in that department. She was, however, placed on the pay roll and given her vacation period at once. It did not concern the department whether her school year began or closed with a season of rest. I, too, was entitled to a vacation of four weeks each year and it was usual for me to take it in July or August. Ordinarily I spent it in the vicinity of the great lakes in the northern part of the state or with parties of excursionists in the mountains. This year I designed to visit New England and to take with me my wife. Caroline was agreeable to this plan and I made all arrangements accordingly.
In the latter part of June we were married and on the very same day, as a part of the celebration, the work of putting the new novel into type was begun. It was a joyful occasion. The wedding ceremony was performed at my house in Co-opolis and Governor Thompson did me the honor to officiate. It was not a public affair. Members of the Legislative Council, Governor Thompson and the members of my departmental staff and their wives were present at the wedding feast, which was spread at the Co-opolitan Hotel. That evening my wife and I took a special car at 11:30 o’clock on the Co-opolis Southern Electric Railroad for Boise City, from which place we went to Nampa, met the early morning east-bound train on the Union Pacific and proceeded on our wedding trip.
We were absent until the middle of August and were glad enough to return. I say we were glad to return, but this does not mean that our trip was unpleasant. We were like people of refinement who gayly abandon the luxurious surroundings of a beautiful Christian home and, returning to the primitive habits of their savage ancestry, descend, for a short season, to the novelty of camp life. However enjoyable such life may seem for a season there comes a time, and that speedily, when the novelty wears off, and life in the civilized world is all the more pleasurable by comparison. So you descend into the regions of commercial competition; the waste regions and desert lands of speculation; the world where old men and women are left to die in poverty after a life of usefulness; where little children, innocent of wrong, are trained daily to sin, or are starved to death in sight of plenty. We were glad to return to Co-opolis and take up our labors in a land where we could not hope to acquire more of the world’s good than we could use, but where we could be sure that we and ours would not be compelled to try subsistence on less than we needed, and where every human being was guaranteed “the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”