Brook Farm: Historic and Personal MemoirsCodman, John Thomas
History
Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs
Codman, John Thomas
Brook Farm Phalanx (West Roxbury, Boston, Mass.)
"MINOT PRATT."
It was about this time that a "party" was given by the "Great Apostle,"
as Mr. Brisbane was called by us. I made a memorandum of it at the
time, which aids my memory in presenting it.
The day had been pleasant; it was one of the last in March. The farm
work had progressed as usual. Old Kate was at the plough and Cyclops at
the wagon. Who was Cyclops? She was a large, raw-boned, gray-white
mare, whose feeding did not show well; the more oats and meal and hay
she had, the more ribs we counted in her sides--you have seen such an
animal! But she was wonderful, because she stepped longer, than any
other of the horses; worked harder without showing fatigue, and made
the nine miles to Boston in a practical if not a graceful way.
She had a fault, and horsemen had to admit it (you know they seldom
admit a fault but what is very visible). This was a visible fault, and
yet at the same time it was a want of visibility. She had but one eye.
And so Glover it was, I am quite sure, named her Cyclops.
By the by, she had one other fault that I had almost forgotten, and
that was of elevating her heels against the dashers of wagons, when she
had an ugly fit, which took place semi-occasionally, and the
peculiarity of it was that she was not particular as to time or place
where she made her exhibitions. It might be in Dock Square or State
Street, or it might be on the farm, just as all were starting out. It
was not over pleasant to be near her when she flung those long hind
legs some six feet in air, and the dash-board was flying in pieces.
The "General," with some others, was about to take a ride one day, when
she put a hind foot over the dasher, which caused him to dismount
precipitately. "For," he said he, when speaking of it, "I thought if
she was g-going to _g-get_ in, it was time for _me_ to get out!"
The horn, as usual, rang out its cheerful tones for meals. There were
but few notes of preparation shown outside the rooms, for the event of
the evening. Up in the greenhouse the gardener and myself were busy
picking out choice flowering plants, and clipping off a stray dead leaf
or twig, and scouring the pots until they shone; and as the other teams
were busy, I harnessed my "Prince" to his cart and carried them to the
Hive where we made the best display of them we could in the dining room.
We had some mottoes on the walls, as "The Series distribute the
Harmonics of the Universe," "Attractive Industry," "Universal Unity,"
etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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