The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-14

glow of their kitchen fire. The girl turned her eyes upon Zenobia and then appar- ently saw nothing else in the room. She seemed about to step forward and greet her, but instead of doing so dropped upon her knees and raised her hands and eyes toward the queenly beauty with touch ing, appealing manner. But no kindly light answered from Zenobia's eyes and the raised hands fell upon the bosom. What does the child mean?" said Zeno- bia. "Is she crazy?" Here Hollingsworth interfered and actually drowned at Zeno- bia as he drew the girl to the fire and made her comfortable.
 She was no wanderer of the air, no mys- terious being, only a girl named Priscilla whom old Noodle had handed over to Hollingsworth. begging him to take her to Blithedale where. he had said, she would find friends. No one knew aught
 of the girl and she gave no account of herself, but she found friends there and stayed on with them. She devoted herself to Zenobia, appearing happy when she could be with her, and Zenobia was harsh and kind to her by turns, as suited her caprice. For Hollingsworth, too, the girl showed a great liking, and his influence over her was absolute. He was a stern man with others, but was always kind to Priscilla He was a man rugged of frame and of face, who had been a blacksmith
 rumor said, before he had turned philan- thropist and social philosopher, but the spell he cast over the naughty Zenoba was as great as that which he exercised over the shrinking Priscilla Like all men with one idea, he was remorseless and selfish in the pursuit of 1t, counting no cost too great. no action too ignoble or theory, and ready to trample upon all that right-minded men hold binding in the furtherance of his self-created plans for the regeneration of the race
 The Arcadians of Blitherale took up the life of their community In the manner in which they had mapped it out-but some how 1t was not at all the sort of life they had expected it to be. The time of plant ing came and the time of growing crops: and field and amid the cows and swine, while they planned for the future when all men and women should be as they were. They held their intellectual assemblies of evenings in the farmhouse and talked philosophy or on summer afternoons.
 when work would admit respite, they told tales upon verdant banks under the trees-like Boccaccio's people, only their tales were more decent. Old Silas consid-
 <o
 slack housewives and wondered how
 long their play would continue.
 After all the thing was hardly more real
 than Marie Antoinette and her court play
 ing at shepherds and shepherdesses at the
 Petit Trianon, though sometimes Cover dale fancied that the 'Intellectuals" of
 Blithedale were losing something of what
 they had brought with them instead of acquiring moro of that which they were seeking. The hard farm life seemed to 1 be bringing them nearer to Silas Foster, l not Silas Foster nearer to them. He wes | almost scared at feeling he began to have of fellowship with the pigs and the ! oxen. His muse had flown away entirely l and poetry refused to adjust itself to l hoeing potatoes or wedding onions. "Oh l MT. Coverdale," said Zenobia one day write us a poem. such a one as Burns | used to compose at the blow tail.' Burns never composed a poem at the blow tail. l replied Coverdale almost savagely, "and he was never a poet while he was g farmer or farmer while he was poet .' While their enterprise was all in theory | the Blithedale people had pleased them | selves with delectable visions of the | standardization of labor. It was to be a /, form of prayer and ceremonial of wor- | ship. Each stroke of the hoe was to un- | cover some aromatic root of wisdom and | pausing in the field to let wind dry the ! moisture from their foreheads, they were | to look upward and catch glimpse into the far-off soul of Truth. But things did i not turn out just that way. Coverdale | felt that he was becoming too much like | the clods he was turning. It is true that 1 sometimes, pausing in his work and glanc- | ing about suddenly, he would discern a richer picturesqueness in the visible scene ] as if nature had been caught unawares and had not had time to put on her "com- pany" look. But that was all. The neigh bors told amusing tales of the Blithedale people digging up whole acres of corn for