Mr. Pratt and his family left Brook Farm when the association was
reorganized as a Fourierite Phalanx, and was succeeded by John Codman,
who, under the new order, was made Chief of the Agricultural Series, a
post which he filled with signal ability during the remaining years of
the community’s existence. The Codmans were important members of the
Phalanx taking responsible places in the management of affairs, and
fully demonstrating the practicability of abiding by Christian
principles in every day life. They were the last to leave the place,
remaining to assume the sad task of winding up the details of final
settlements.
At one time I worked in the flower garden and the conservatory with one
of the Codman boys whom I called Baas, as he was my elder and my
superior in the business of raising plants, shrubs and flowers for
market. The economic worth of kindness to animals is shown by our daily
use of a prize bull as a draught animal to draw the cart in hauling
manure, to drag the cultivator in the garden and similar tasks. He was
a magnificent creature, a gift from Francis George Shaw and was, at
most seasons so gentle and docile that the Baas used to ride on his
back between the barn and the garden.
Wednesdays and Saturdays were half-holidays not only for the school but
for the entire community. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoon the whole
place was en-fete. Work was suspended except the simple household
duties and the care of the animals, and the hours were devoted to
having a good time. The pupils were allowed to do as they pleased, and
it pleased us boys sometimes to be robbers and brigands and smugglers
in a cavern behind the Eyrie. Here we could build a fire on condition
that no fire was ever to be built elsewhere. This dark and dismal cave
occupied a conspicuous place in my memories of Brook Farm for many
years until in later life, I took my daughter to visit the old place,
when puffed up pride had a bad fall. When we came to the cave, I could
hardly believe my own eyes. That spacious den of thieves, that resort
of bold outlaws was a cleft between two great boulders. One could crawl
into it and turn around and that was about all, It surely must have
shrunk or filled up or contracted or something, such a poor little
quart-pot of a cavern it proved to be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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