The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 | Page 5

a foolish habit of sleeping in my arms when he
was a baby; it's time he was broke of it."
"Very well."
"He must learn to stand alone, eh?" anxiously. "Good night";--and in a
moment I heard his heavy steps on the stairs, stopping, then going on
faster, as if afraid of his own resolution.
In the middle of the night I was wakened by somebody fumbling for
Tony at my side,--"Afraid the child would prove troublesome,"--and
saw him go off with the boy like a mite in his arms, growling caresses
like a lioness who has recovered her whelp. I say lioness, for, with all
his weight of flesh and coarseness, Knowles left the impression on your
mind of a sensitive, nervous woman.
* * * * *
Late one spring afternoon, a month after that, Knowles and I stood on
one of the hills overlooking the communist village of Economy. I was
weak and dizzy from illness and a long journey; the intense quiet of the
landscape before me affected me like a strain of solemn music.
Knowles had infected me with his eager hope. Nature was about to take
me to her great mother's bosom, for the first time. Life was to give me
the repose I asked, satisfy all the needs of my soul: here was the
foretaste. The quaint little hamlet literally slept on the river-bank; not a

living creature was visible on the three grass-grown streets; many of the
high-gabled brick houses, even at that date of the colony, were closed
and vacant, their inmates having dropped from the quiet of this life into
an even deeper sleep, and having been silently transferred to rest under
the flat grass of the apple-orchards, according to the habit of the society.
From the other houses, however, pale rifts of smoke wavered across the
cold blue sky; great apple and peach orchards swept up the hills back of
the town, quite out of sight. They were in blossom, I remember, and
covered the green of the hills with a veil of delicate pink. A bleak wind,
as we stood there, brought their perfume towards us, and ruffled the
broad, dark river into sudden ripples of cut silver: beyond that, motion
there was none. Looking curiously down into the town, I could
distinguish a great, barn-like church, a public laundry, bakery, apiary,
and one or two other buildings, like factories, but all empty, apparently,
and deserted. After all, was this some quaint German village brought
hither in an enchanted sleep, and dropped down in the New World?
About the houses were silent, trim little gardens, set round with yew
and box cut in monstrous shapes, and filled with plants of which this
soil knew nothing. Up a path from the woods, too, came at last some
curious figures, in a dress belonging to the last century.
Knowles had no idea, like mine, of being bewitched; he rubbed his
hands in a smothered excitement. "We too shall be Arcadians!" he burst
out. "Humphreys!" anxiously, as we plodded down the hill, "we must
be careful, very careful, my boy. These are greatly innocent and pure
natures with which we have come in contact: the world must have
grown vague and dim to them long ago, wrapped in their high
communings. We must leave all worldly words and thoughts outside, as
a snake drops his skin. No talk of money here, lad. It would be as well,
too, not to mention any family ties, such as wife or child: such bonds
must seem to this lofty human brotherhood debasing and gross."
So saying, and dropping Tony's hand in order that the child even might
stand alone, we came into the village street; Knowles growing red with
eagerness as one of the odd figures came towards us. "Careful,
Zachary!" in a hoarse whisper. "It all depends on this first day whether
we are accepted or not. Remember their purity of thought, their forms

gathered from the patriarchs and apostles!"
I had a vague remembrance of a washing of feet, practised in those
days; of calf-killing and open tents for strangers; so stood perplexed
while the brother approached and stood there, like an animate lager-bier
barrel, dressed in flannel, with a round hat on top. "Was brauchen Sie?"
he grumbled.
I don't know in what words Knowles's tremulous tones conveyed the
idea that we were strangers, going on to state that we were also
world-weary, and--
"Ach! want der supper," he said, his face brightening, and, turning, he
jogged on, elephant-like, before, muttering something about himself,
"Bin Yosef, an keepit der tavern,"--to the door of which, one of the
silent brick dwellings, he speedily brought us; and, summoning some
"Christ-ina" in a subdued bellow from the bowels of the cellar, went
into the neat bar-room,