usehold speak--as a difficult, recalcitrant member of the colony.

The Joneses were very poor. They had two children and lived in a mere
shack on the outskirts of the community. Jones was a shoemaker. His wife
came twice a week to clean up and set things to rights in the Baxter
menage--his two houses. I took care of the tent myself, while I was
there....

By this time Darrie, Ruth, and Mrs. Baxter were up. I sat in the
library, in the morris chair, deeply immersed in the life of Nietzsche,
by his sister. Nevertheless I was not so preoccupied as not to catch
fugitive glimpses of kimonos disappearing around door-corners ... women
at their mysterious morning ritual of preparing themselves against the
day.

Comfortable of mind, at ease in heart and body, I sat there, dangling
one leg over the arm of the chair. I was much at home in the midst of
this easy, disjointed family group.

* * * * *

We were, the four of us--Darrie, Hildreth, Ruth, and I--seated together
at our outdoor table, scooping out soft-boiled eggs.

Hildreth Baxter had boiled my two eggs medium for me ... to the
humorous, affected consternation of Darrie and Ruth, which they, of
course, deliberately made visible to me, with the implication--

"You'd best look out, when Penton's lazy little wife waits on you ...
she is the one who generally demands to be waited on, and if--"

* * * * *

And now, for the moment, all of us were combined against the master of
the house ... furtively and jocularly combined, like naughty
children....

Hildreth smuggled forth her coffee percolator, which she kept hidden
from her husband's search ... and we soon, by the aid of an alcohol
stove, had a cup of fragrant coffee a-piece ... which Darrie made....

"Penton swears coffee is worse than whiskey, the rankest of poisons. We
have to hide the percolator from him."

"He lies a-bed late, when he wakes. He lies there thinking out what he
will later on dictate to Ruth.... we can finish before--"

But just then Penton himself came hurrying up the path from the little
cottage.

When he saw what we were doing he gave us such a look of solemn disgust
that we nearly smothered with laughter, which we tried to suppress.

"When you take that percolator off the table--" he stood aloof, "I'll
sit down with you."

Then we laughed outright, not in disrespect of him, but as children
laugh at a humorous incident at sc