He laid the poem in the white birch frame against a stone and proceeded.  We moved away, every man to his own place.

In a community where the communers have to chop the fire-wood, canned salmon is a good standby.

That day we had salmon for dinner.

Just as a matter of encouragement I had the artist of the community print a Latin motto in fine Gothic characters: 

  “LABORARE EST ORARE”

This I tacked to the block at the woodpile.  We had one orator in the community—­just one.

Next morning, when the motto stared him in the face, he said:  “Gee whiz! that’s great—­Labour is oratory!” It was a blow at a venture in the interpretation of Latin and instead of wood to cook the breakfast we had a speech on the labour of the orator!

The idea that I was giving land away got noised abroad, and a thousand letters of inquiry came to me.  Most of the inquirers asked if I gave “deeds” to the land.

Others got an idea that I had a cooeperative colony and all they had to do was to come and plant themselves on the land.  I never intended to organize a colony but I did invite some families to enjoy the summer on the farm.

I shall not ask as many next year for I have no talent as a manager and it takes more management than I imagined to look after even half a dozen families.

I had a number of parties from the city during the summer—­the largest being from the Church of the Ascension and the Cosmopolitan Church.  From Ascension Church came a young men’s club on Decoration day.  I introduced the boys to their first experience in archery.

The people from the Cosmopolitan Church came on a Sunday and I took them over the hill to call on my friends, the Franciscan monks, of the society of the Atonement.  The Franciscans are my nearest neighbours on the north and on the south is my neighbour Mr. Epstein, a Russian Jewish farmer.

From the north we have had an intellectual and moral fellowship and from the south the comradeship of the soil.

To Mr. Epstein’s bull we are indebted for the element of excitement—­a very necessary element if one could get it in any sort of orderly arrangement.

The bull objected to Mr. Epstein interfering in what might be called his (the bull’s) family affairs.  He tossed his owner into the air three times one afternoon in my meadow and, but for the timely interference of a dog, would have gathered the farmer to his fathers.  Several of our community saw the incident, but the vibrations had a more enervating effect than even those around the woodpile, and being armed only with the first law of nature they left the honours of the incident to the dog.

The following Sunday morning I saw a crowd in Mr. Epstein’s orchard.  It looked like a small county fair.  A cow doctor had been imported to perform an operation on the bull.  Mr. Epstein and his muzik, Michael, almost came to blows in trying to decide which of them should put the yoke on the bull’s neck.  No decent farmer will stand aloof in such a crisis:  so I threw my coat off and offered my services.  The patient made serious objections to me, but permitted the yoke to be adjusted by a day labourer named Harvey Outhouse.