Читать книгу Other Worlds - Lena Jane Fry - Страница 4

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In a country place near a town called Lake View, on the planet Herschel, lived a family of the name of Vivian. They were known all over the country for their hospitality, wealth and their beautiful daughters. For generations the name Vivian had been associated with brave deeds, honest lives and intellect. The girls were even known as “those very clever Vivian girls.” Mira, the youngest of the four girls, just sixteen as this story opens, was a bright, winsome girl, tall and graceful, with large hazel eyes, a pink and white complexion, and an abundance of golden hair.

On a bright autumn afternoon Mira was on the lawn watching the birds and listening to their clatter as they collected in large numbers to take their yearly journey to a warmer climate. “How wise they are,” she pondered; “though so small, they know more than the people do. Away they go to another part of the world. I wish I could go with them. I am so weary of always staying in one place.” She gazed after them as they took their onward flight, and her mother, who had been watching her from the window, seemed to catch the thought, for she said aloud: “I am afraid, like the birds, she will soon be leaving me alone.”

“Why, mother,” said a young man, approaching her; “you are actually talking to yourself. I thought Helen or Mira was with you. I want one of them to go on the lake with me.”

“Tom, look at Mira,” the mother exclaimed. “She is quite grown up. I have never realized it till now. But before you call either of the girls, I want to talk to you about the society you young people have been organizing. The ideas are strange to me. When I was young, married women didn’t take positions. Is it possible that you cannot support your wife?”

“Why, of course I could,” the young man replied; “but when you were young you had no Trusts to absorb your income as we have in this generation. Nellie and I are dedicating ourselves to this undertaking. We intend to work together to free ourselves and all who join us from their tyranny.”

“It is quite an undertaking,” his mother replied. “I don’t see how you are going to succeed without capital. It takes so much money now to start anything to what it did when your father was young, and he inherited the property.”

“The world hasn’t shrunk,” Tom replied, “since father’s time. The only difficulty is in our knowing how to meet the situation in a new way. The industry of the masses in every way, is how wealth has been collected, and the people are as willing to work now as they ever have been. But here is Mira.”

“Will you take a row with me, Mira?” he asks as she approaches them. “I will tell you all about the society, mother, when we come back. I want to rest my brain for a while out on the water. You don’t mind, do you, mother?” he inquired.

“Oh, no,” she replied; “there is time enough before you return to the city.”

Mrs. Vivian, her eldest son Geron and his family, besides Mira, lived on the Vivian estate. The rest of the family had gone to the city to live, after their father died; as their wealth had decreased it was necessary. Tom was a lawyer; Libra had married a banker, and Scoris and Helen had employment. The next day the rest of the family arrived at the old homestead, for it was the mother’s birthday.

The family dinner had been a success, and they had all assembled in the old-fashioned drawingroom for the evening. Old friends had been invited to meet the city members of the family, especially Tom, who at that time was making a change in the industrial life not well understood by his friends or some members of the family. The gentlemen in the party had grouped around Tom to hear about it, for it had been a surprise to them that he had set aside his profession to take up this new line of work, for he had been a successful lawyer for so young a man. In another corner of the room some of the ladies were discussing the fashions, while still another group had centered around Nellie, Tom’s bride.

The room was long and this evening the music room doors had been thrown open on one side and the library opening into it also by large doors afforded an opportunity for each group to converse without interrupting the other. Mira had not been noticed when she and Jack Moberly (an old acquaintance) had passed out on the lawn. He had something to tell her, he whispered. He was going away nearly two thousand miles. An old uncle had offered him a position superior to anything he could ever expect if he stayed in Lake View. He wanted Mira to marry him and go, too.

“I cannot leave you,” he said; and she in her inexperience thought she couldn’t live without him. They knew her mother would never give her consent, for she had been heard to say that if a child of hers married under age she would break the marriage. No one had objected to Jack, but none had suspected the true state of affairs between him and Mira. She was so young.

They joined the rest of the family after a time and the evening passed, all having enjoyed the music and the singing, as well as the renewing of old friendships.

No one imagined that this birthday would be a day to be remembered as the turning point in more lives than one among them, but it was.

Libra, the eldest daughter, and her husband had returned to the city. Scoris and Helen, as well as Tom and Nellie, remained for a few days longer. The next morning Tom announced that he was going to take Nellie across the lake, and possibly they would go on farther and see some old friends, so would not be back until evening. The morning was bright and the water was as clear as crystal as they passed out from the small lake through the narrows into the larger body of water, then on to one of the small islands to the wonderful cave Tom had discovered when a boy. They had fastened the boat, climbed the steep hill and walked about half a mile through thickly grown shrubs, trees and brush, and over rocks; still no cave was in sight. Nellie looked at Tom inquiringly. She could see a high rock on one side with shrubs growing on its side in places, but no sign of an opening except almost at the top, but that was fully ten feet high.

Pushing aside the brush with one hand and holding the overhanging limb of a large tree with the other, Tom said: “Now you follow me and I will show you my old hiding place.” They went down a narrow passage rather steep in places, but by hanging onto the roots of an old grape vine managed to keep their footing until they landed on solid rock. They walked a few feet, when, before them Nellie saw an opening about two and a half feet wide. Beyond she could see a large chamber, lighted by the opening she had seen on the outside. Part of the floor was flat and on one side of the wall it was broken, as if it had been cut out for use at some time, for it formed a seat and a table, or rather a shelf large enough to hold the basket of provisions they had brought. Several boxes were lying about, showing that it had been used at some time before. Tom selected a box for Nellie, seated himself on the rock, then exclaimed: “This is the place; what do you think of it?”

“Think!” she exclaimed; “I haven’t got beyond wondering yet. And it was here you thought out all the plans for the society?”

“Yes,” he answered; “after I had lived in the city and seen all the miseries the poor have to endure—the injustices.”

“No, no, dear, don’t say it,” she interrupts him. “This is our resting time, and in such a place we are not going to spoil our holiday by even thinking of unpleasant things today. So you came here to be quiet and plan for the future?”

“Yes, the most important rules were written on that table of stone.”

“What a lovely memory so many of you have who were born and raised in the country,” she continued. “How little the city people know about its resources. Why, this cave would answer for a summer home. I wish it was earlier in the season. We could bring in branches of trees and cover them with pine needles for a bed, some bedding, rugs, etc., and what more could we wish for as a quiet place to rest in?”

“Your enthusiasm would make up for deficiencies,” Tom answered. “While you arrange our lunch I will go to a spring for water, so we can make tea. Do you see the stove over there under that opening where the light comes from?”

“I see a pile of stones,” she answered.

“Oh, you poor, ignorant city girl,” he laughed, “not to recognize the camper’s most useful kitchen utensil.”

While her husband was gone for water, Nellie looked around the cave, feeling the calmness of this God-made Temple. Only the twitter of birds, and the rustle of falling leaves could be heard. She arranged the table for their lunch, then waited till he came. Tom made the tea after he had boiled the water over the twigs he had gathered and burned in the stone stove. After lunch they strolled on through the woods, gathering flowers, while Tom showed her all the beauties of the place. Evening came before they realized it and as they ascended the hill on their return home after securing the boat, when out from the shadow of the trees they saw a calf tied to a tree.

“Oh, Tom!” Nellie exclaimed, “look at that poor, helpless creature. It cannot even lie down. Who tied it like that?”

“No one,” he replied. “Don’t you see it has wound itself up by twisting the rope about the tree as it ran around it.”

“Such a look of resignation,” Nellie said. “It reminds me of the people in the cities. They, too, are tied by the rope that the trusts and custom have wound them up with.

“They suffer and die without knowing how easy it is to—go back—just like—the calf. Oh!” she cried; “it will run over me. I didn’t know the rope was so long.”

“Look out, or he will kick you before I can get hold of the rope. I had to drive him back the way he came, and I forgot that you didn’t know the ways of calves,” Tom said hurriedly, as he ran to secure it. She had moved far enough away to feel safe before she continued in the same train of thought.

“It has trampled its food down as it ran around its shelter, besides amusing itself. Again that is like the majority of city people. The infants play with rattle boxes, but the grown children with politics and money. A shelter and food are gambled for until the age limit confronts them.”

“There you are, old fellow,” Tom exclaims, not noticing Nellie’s reverie as he unties the rope. “Now, Nellie, you go on to the house, and tell them I am coming as hungry as a bear. I’ll give him a drink before he does the same thing over again.”

Nellie started and was crossing the orchard when she saw a number of cows eating apples that had fallen on the ground. She thought of little children in the city who rarely tasted an apple and could be seen looking longingly at the street stands. The abundance of fruit everywhere on this large estate of several hundred acres was amazing to her, as she compared the need of these things in the cities. “Oh, what an unnecessary waste,” she thought. “It would have seemed incredible if I had been told it. Here are cows feeding upon the rarest varieties.”

“Well,” exclaimed Mira, laughingly, as she appeared around the corner of an outbuilding, “are you trying to cheat the cows? We have been keeping dinner until I expect it is spoiled, waiting for you. Mother became uneasy and sent me to hurry you up.”

As Tom overtook them he laughed also at seeing the fruit in Nellie’s arms. After dinner he took her to the cellar and showed her the great bins of apples without a flaw that were stored for winter, besides all the vegetables and all kinds of fruit; then they went to the parlor, where the rest of the family had assembled.

A low fire burned in the grate to make the room cheerful as it had turned chilly.

Scoris, the eldest unmarried sister, was trying to interest Geron’s wife in the society, but in spite of her own enthusiasm, Grace did not seem to respond. Just at this time Scoris found it hard to talk on any other subject for any length of time, it seemed so all-important to her. Helen, the other sister, and Nellie exchanged glances, both realizing that there was a prejudice against the society in the home circle they had not expected. Scoris, with Tom, had been the means of starting the society, which had grown so fast that Tom had finally sold out his law partnership so that he could devote his whole time to it. In the city almost every one responded that they had been able to reach, and here were their own relatives absolutely indifferent.

Several times during the evening Nellie would ask questions about the abundance of things that were thrown away or given to the animals. Geron finally explained that all those things were of less value to them than the labor would amount to. “We live so far away from the cities that it doesn’t pay to ship them. Tom’s idea is the best, evidently, for he intends to bring the people to the farms where they can secure all the surplus. You will have your hands full, I can promise you. If I wasn’t so far away I would advise you to take my place; farming don’t pay any too well.”

Tom answered: “You must remember I am not starting a farm, merely using the land to provide the necessities at first hand. The object of the society is to secure homes for its members, then food at first cost, while it aims to give them employment as nearly as possible according to their talents and the society’s needs. We take the farms to build our town because it has to be started under new conditions, for we must compete with the old money system for many years.”