Fruitlands by Gloria Whelan Page B

for a while. Father says we can depend on the barley crop to see us through the winter.
    Father and Mr. Lane leave tomorrow for New York City to try to interest more people in joining us.
    Mother was happier in the woods today than she has been for a long time. She has to work so hard to cook and clean and sew for all of us. She seldom complains, but today on the way home from picking berries she sighed and said she wished she could make a blackberry pie. You cannot make a pie without lard, and lard comes from pigs. So no pie.
    I am too old to play with dolls myself, but I helped Lizzie make new clothes for her dolls. She begged me to play at a tea party for the dolls, which I did. We made dandelion tea. I don’t see why we have to be just one age all the time. It would be nice if we could be older sometimes and do just as we liked and then younger and still play with dolls.
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    S EPTEMBER 3, 1843
    William and my sisters and I shucked corn all morning until we were covered head to toe with the sticky corn silk. Afterward we had a game of hide-and-seek amongthe cornstalks. We were hot from the running and sat on a log with our feet dangling in the river. William told us about England. We asked him if he missed living there. He said in England he had no family but his father. Now, at Fruitlands, we are all his family. I said he could be our brother forever.
    In the afternoon we dried herbs: peppermint, rosemary, tansy, parsley, savory, and lavender. My hands smelled so lovely I didn’t wash them for supper.
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    S EPTEMBER 3, 1843
    I was good almost all of today. It is easier to be good if you are busy.
    Tonight Father told us how when he was a young man, unable to find work as a teacher, he became a peddler. He sold buttons and thimbles, shaving brushes, combs, scissors, and sewing threads. For five years he traveled all over the South, sleeping in slave quarters and nearly drowning in the Dismal Swamp of Virginia. He entered thousands of homes. Sometimes he was given a cold glass of water. Sometimes the dogs were set upon him. As Father told his story, I thought what ahard life he has had. Still, he is always in good spirits and full of hope. I try to be hopeful as well, but we seem to want for everything. When once a friend asked Mother if our poverty was not difficult for her, she said Father’s tatters were the rags of righteousness. I thought that very beautiful. I mean to work harder and be more cheerful.
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    S EPTEMBER 6, 1843
    Yesterday all the men left the farm, Mr. Palmer and Mr. Bower to Boston and Father and Mr. Lane to New York. Father and Mr. Lane had no money for their travel, but they said they would board the boat in Boston and offer to give a lecture to the passengers in exchange for their passage. Mother had hoped they would change into their suits, but they said it was well that the rest of the world should see them in their linen tunics and trousers, the better to understand their purpose. William went with them.
    Just at dark we had a very bad thunderstorm. Before the storm Mother and my sisters and I got in the barley harvest.
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    S EPTEMBER 6, 1843
    Yesterday, before everyone left, Mother asked Father, “Bronson, shouldn’t the barley be brought into the barn before you go?”
    â€œThe barley can wait until we return, my dear. What is of foremost importance now is to bring new people into our little experiment. We must spread the happy word. The barley is all cut, and we will only be gone a few days.”
    â€œBut if it should rain?” Mother asked.
    Mr. Lane looked up into the sky and said, “There will be no rain.” I do think Mr. Lane believes he can make the rain come or go as he pleases.
    Father said, “We must do our duty and trust to Providence.”
    The sun shone all day yesterday, and Mother said after we weeded the carrots and cabbage we might have a holiday. I made up a play about an enchanted island like Shakespeare’s The Tempest.