believed that men
and women should go as nearly naked as possible ... clothing for warmth
only ... and, as one grew in strength and health through nude contact
with living sun and air and water, the body would gradually attain the
power to keep itself warm from the health and strength that was in it.

So, in the middle of severe winter that now had fallen on us, I went
about in sandals, without socks. I wore no undershirt, and no coat ...
and went with my shirt open at the neck. I wore no hat....

Spalton himself often went coatless--in warm weather. His main sartorial
eccentricity was the wearing of a broad-brimmed hat. And whenever he
bought a new Stetson, he cut holes in the top and jumped on it, to make
it look more interesting and less shop-new ... of course everybody in
the community wore soft shirts and flowing ties.

We addressed each other by first names and nicknames. Spalton went under
the appellation of "John." One day a wealthy visitor had driven up.
Spalton was out chopping wood.

"Come here, John, and hold my horses."

Spalton dropped the axe and obeyed.

Afterward he had been dismissed with a fifty cent tip.

He told the story on himself, and the name "John" stuck.

* * * * *

Working in the bindery, I began to find out things about the community
of Eos that were not as ideal as might be ... most of the illumination
of the books was done by girls, even by children after school hours. The
outlines of the letters and objects to be hand-illumined were printed in
with the text, the girls and children merely coloured them between the
lines.

In each department, hidden behind gorgeous, flowing curtains, were
time-clocks, on which employees rang up when they came to work, and when
they left. Also, each worker was supposed to receive dividends--which
dividends consisted in pairs of mittens and thick woolen socks
distributed by the foremen at Christmas time ... or maybe an extra
dollar in pay, that week.

"Two dollars a week less than a fellow would draw at any other place
that ran the same sort of business," grumbled a young bookbinder who was
by way of being a poet, "and a pair of woolen mittens or socks, or an
extra dollar, once a year, as dividends!"

However, I think that the artworkers had finer lodgings and board than
most workers could have supplied for themselves ... and the married
couples lived in nicer houses ... and they heard the best music, had the
bes