Beauty and The Beast - Bayard Taylor (story read aloud .TXT) 📗

Mrs. Shelldrake, like a prudent housekeeper, marched off to the kitchen, where Perkins had already kindled a fire. We looked in at the door, but thought it best to allow her undisputed sway in such a narrow realm. Eunice was unpacking some loaves of bread and paper bags of crackers; and Miss Ringtop, smiling through her ropy curls, as much as to say, `You see, I also can perform the coarser tasks of life!’ occupied herself with plates and cups. We men, therefore, walked out to the garden, which we found in a promising condition. The usual vegetables had been planted and were growing finely, for the season was yet scarcely warm enough for the weeds to make much headway. Radishes, young onions, and lettuce formed our contribution to the table. The Shelldrakes, I should explain, had not yet advanced to the antediluvian point, in diet: nor, indeed, had either Eunice or myself. We acknowledged the fascination of tea, we saw a very mitigated evil in milk and butter, and we were conscious of stifled longings after the abomination of meat. Only Mallory, Hollins, and Miss Ringtop had reached that loftiest round on the ladder of progress where the material nature loosens the last fetter of the spiritual. They looked down upon us, and we meekly admitted their right to do so.

“Our board, that evening, was really tempting. The absence of meat was compensated to us by the crisp and racy onions, and I craved only a little salt, which had been interdicted, as a most pernicious substance. I sat at one corner of the table, beside Perkins Brown, who took an opportunity, while the others were engaged in conversation, to jog my elbow gently. As I turned towards him, he said nothing, but dropped his eyes significantly. The little rascal had the lid of a blacking-box, filled with salt, upon his knee, and was privately seasoning his onions and radishes.

I blushed at the thought of my hypocrisy, but the onions were so much better that I couldn’t help dipping into the lid with him.

“`Oh,’ said Eunice, `we must send for some oil and vinegar! This lettuce is very nice.’

“`Oil and vinegar?’ exclaimed Abel.

“`Why, yes,’ said she, innocently: `they are both vegetable substances.’

“Abel at first looked rather foolish, but quickly recovering himself, said—

“`All vegetable substances are not proper for food: you would not taste the poison-oak, or sit under the upas-tree of Java.’

“`Well, Abel,’ Eunice rejoined, `how are we to distinguish what is best for us? How are we to know WHAT vegetables to choose, or what animal and mineral substances to avoid?’

“`I will tell you,’ he answered, with a lofty air. `See here!’ pointing to his temple, where the second pimple—either from the change of air, or because, in the excitement of the last few days, he had forgotten it—was actually healed. `My blood is at last pure. The struggle between the natural and the unnatural is over, and I am beyond the depraved influences of my former taste. My instincts are now, therefore, entirely pure also. What is good for man to eat, that I shall have a natural desire to eat: what is bad will be naturally repelled. How does the cow distinguish between the wholesome and the poisonous herbs of the meadow? And is man less than a cow, that he cannot cultivate his instincts to an equal point? Let me walk through the woods and I can tell you every berry and root which God designed for food, though I know not its name, and have never seen it before. I shall make use of my time, during our sojourn here, to test, by my purified instinct, every substance, animal, mineral, and vegetable, upon which the human race subsists, and to create a catalogue of the True Food of Man!’

“Abel was eloquent on this theme, and he silenced not only Eunice, but the rest of us. Indeed, as we were all half infected with the same delusions, it was not easy to answer his sophistries.

“After supper was over, the prospect of cleaning the dishes and putting things in order was not so agreeable; but Mrs. Shelldrake and Perkins undertook the work, and we did not think it necessary to interfere with them. Half an hour afterwards, when the full moon had risen, we took our chairs upon the sloop, to enjoy the calm, silver night, the soft sea-air, and our summer’s residence in anticipatory talk.

“`My friends,’ said Hollins (and HIS hobby, as you may remember, Ned, was the organization of Society, rather than those reforms which apply directly to the Individual),—`my friends, I think we are sufficiently advanced in progressive ideas to establish our little Arcadian community upon what I consider the true basis: not Law, nor Custom, but the uncorrupted impulses of our nature. What Abel said in regard to dietetic reform is true; but that alone will not regenerate the race. We must rise superior to those conventional ideas of Duty whereby Life is warped and crippled. Life must not be a prison, where each one must come and go, work, eat, and sleep, as the jailer commands. Labor must not be a necessity, but a spontaneous joy. ‘Tis true, but little labor is required of us here: let us, therefore, have no set tasks, no fixed rules, but each one work, rest, eat, sleep, talk or be silent, as his own nature prompts.’

“Perkins, sitting on the steps, gave a suppressed chuckle, which I think no one heard but myself. I was vexed with his levity, but, nevertheless, gave him a warning nudge with my toe, in payment for the surreptitious salt.

“`That’s just the notion I had, when I first talked of our coming here,’ said Shelldrake. `Here we’re alone and unhindered; and if the plan shouldn’t happen to work well (I don’t see why it shouldn’t though), no harm will be done. I’ve had a deal of hard work in my life, and I’ve been badgered and bullied so much by your strait-laced professors, that I’m glad to get away from the world for a spell, and talk and do rationally, without being laughed at.’

“`Yes,’ answered Hollins, `and if we succeed, as I feel we shall, for I think I know the hearts of all of us here, this may be the commencement of a new EEpoch for the world. We may become the turning-point between two dispensations: behind us every thing false and unnatural, before us every thing true, beautiful, and good.’

“`Ah,’ sighed Miss Ringtop, `it reminds me of Gamaliel J. Gawthrop’s beautiful lines:

“`Unrobed man is lying hoary In the distance, gray and dead; There no wreaths of godless glory To his mist-like tresses wed, And the foot-fall of the Ages Reigns supreme, with noiseless tread.’

 

“`I am willing to try the experiment,’ said I, on being appealed to by Hollins; `but don’t you think we had better observe some kind of order, even in yielding every thing to impulse? Shouldn’t there be, at least, a platform, as the politicians call it—an agreement by which we shall all be bound, and which we can afterwards exhibit as the basis of our success?’

“He meditated a few moments, and then answered—

“`I think not. It resembles too much the thing we are trying to overthrow. Can you bind a man’s belief by making him sign certain articles of Faith? No: his thought will be free, in spite of it; and I would have Action—Life—as free as Thought. Our platform— to adopt your image—has but one plank: Truth. Let each only be true to himself: BE himself, ACT himself, or herself with the uttermost candor. We can all agree upon that.’

“The agreement was accordingly made. And certainly no happier or more hopeful human beings went to bed in all New England that night.

“I arose with the sun, went into the garden, and commenced weeding, intending to do my quota of work before breakfast, and then devote the day to reading and conversation. I was presently joined by Shelldrake and Mallory, and between us we finished the onions and radishes, stuck the peas, and cleaned the alleys. Perkins, after milking the cow and turning her out to pasture, assisted Mrs. Shelldrake in the kitchen. At breakfast we were joined by Hollins, who made no excuse for his easy morning habits; nor was one expected. I may as well tell you now, though, that his natural instincts never led him to work. After a week, when a second crop of weeds was coming on, Mallory fell off also, and thenceforth Shelldrake and myself had the entire charge of the garden. Perkins did the rougher work, and was always on hand when he was wanted. Very soon, however, I noticed that he was in the habit of disappearing for two or three hours in the afternoon.

“Our meals preserved the same Spartan simplicity. Eunice, however, carried her point in regard to the salad; for Abel, after tasting and finding it very palatable, decided that oil and vinegar might be classed in the catalogue of True Food. Indeed, his long abstinence from piquant flavors gave him such an appetite for it that our supply of lettuce was soon exhausted. An embarrassing accident also favored us with the use of salt. Perkins happening to move his knee at the moment I was dipping an onion into the blacking-box lid, our supply was knocked upon the floor. He picked it up, and we both hoped the accident might pass unnoticed. But Abel, stretching his long neck across the corner of the table, caught a glimpse of what was going on.

“`What’s that?’ he asked.

“`Oh, it’s—it’s only,’ said I, seeking for a synonyme, `only chloride of sodium!’

“`Chloride of sodium! what do you do with it?’

“`Eat it with onions,’ said I, boldly: `it’s a chemical substance, but I believe it is found in some plants.’

“Eunice, who knew something of chemistry (she taught a class, though you wouldn’t think it), grew red with suppressed fun, but the others were as ignorant as Abel Mallory himself.

“`Let me taste it,’ said he, stretching out an onion.

“I handed him the box-lid, which still contained a portion of its contents. He dipped the onion, bit off a piece, and chewed it gravely.

“`Why,’ said he, turning to me, `it’s very much like salt.’

“Perkins burst into a spluttering yell, which discharged an onion-top he had just put between his teeth across the table; Eunice and I gave way at the same moment; and the others, catching the joke, joined us. But while we were laughing, Abel was finishing his onion, and the result was that Salt was added to the True Food, and thereafter appeared regularly on the table.

“The forenoons we usually spent in reading and writing, each in his or her chamber. (Oh, the journals, Ned!—but you shall not see mine.) After a midday meal,—I cannot call it dinner,—we sat upon the stoop, listening while one of us read aloud, or strolled down the shores on either side, or, when the sun was not too warm, got into a boat, and rowed or floated lazily around the promontory.

“One afternoon, as I was sauntering off, past the garden, towards the eastern inlet, I noticed Perkins slipping along behind the cedar knobs, towards the little woodland at the end of our domain. Curious to find out the cause of his mysterious disappearances, I followed cautiously. From the edge of the wood I saw him enter a little gap between the rocks, which led down to the water. Presently a thread of blue smoke stole up. Quietly creeping along, I got upon the nearer bluff and looked down. There was a sort of hearth built up at the base of the rock, with a brisk little fire burning upon it, but Perkins had disappeared. I stretched myself out upon