On that ledge I have built a platform of white birch and behind the platform a bungalow from the window of which I have a full view of the valley, the Westchester County hills and the river.  I have named the ledge “Ascension Point” in memory of the valued friendships formed at the church on Fifth Avenue.

On the edge of the amphitheatre-shaped meadow, beside the old road that leads to the river, stands the farmhouse.  It is sheltered from winter winds by the hills and from summer sun by elm, maple and walnut trees.

There is nothing to boast of in the arrangement; it was built quickly and not over-well.  If the man who planned it had any more taste than a cow he must have expressed it on the building of the barn, not on the house.  It had been heated with stoves for years, but I tore away the boards that covered the open fireplaces.  I built a cistern on the hill and a cesspool down in the meadow, and between them, in a large room in the house, arranged a bathroom, a big bathroom, big enough to swing a cat around.

I am now knocking a wall down here and there, wiping some outbuildings off the map, and by degrees making it habitable throughout the year.

There is a five-acre orchard on the hill east of the house and through it runs a brook that can be turned to good account.

I had a population of twenty-five during the summer.  They were encamped within a few hundred yards of each other in tents, overhauled barns, etc.  We were all hand-picked Socialists—­dreamers of dreams.

Of course we had to eat and as the raw-food fad did not appeal to us we had to have a fire on which to cook; and as there was an abundance of wood I instituted a wood pile!

To any one about to form a cooeperative community I can recommend this institution as an infinitely better gauge of human character than either the ten commandments or the royal eight-fold pathway!  We didn’t need much wood and there were plenty of men.  We had good tools and—­I was going to say, “wood to burn.”

“It was jolly good fun, don’t you know,” to hack up about three sticks; then the woodcutter would have a story to tell or he “had something he had left undone for days.”  There was an atmosphere around the pile that affected us as the hookworm affects its victims in some Southern communities—­we grew listless, dull, flaccid.

The influence was baneful, subtle.  None of us ever confessed to being affected.  It rather emphasized our idealism.

“In the future,” said one comrade as he laid the axe down after his second stick, “wood will be cut by machinery!” We looked interested.  “Yes,” he said as he rolled a cigarette, “there will be a machine that will cut a cord a second!”

“Why don’t you invent one?” we asked.

“How can one invent anything in this slave age?” he asked, as he glared at us between the curling puffs of smoke.

“That’s true,” we said, and piped down.