Decoration day. I
introduced the boys to their first experience in archery.

The people from the Cosmopolitan Church came on a Sunday and I took
them over the hill to call on my friends, the Franciscan monks, of the
society of the Atonement. The Franciscans are my nearest neighbours on
the north and on the south is my neighbour Mr. Epstein, a Russian
Jewish farmer.

From the north we have had an intellectual and moral fellowship and
from the south the comradeship of the soil.

To Mr. Epstein's bull we are indebted for the element of excitement--a
very necessary element if one could get it in any sort of orderly
arrangement.

The bull objected to Mr. Epstein interfering in what might be called
his (the bull's) family affairs. He tossed his owner into the air
three times one afternoon in my meadow and, but for the timely
interference of a dog, would have gathered the farmer to his fathers.
Several of our community saw the incident, but the vibrations had a
more enervating effect than even those around the woodpile, and being
armed only with the first law of nature they left the honours of the
incident to the dog.

The following Sunday morning I saw a crowd in Mr. Epstein's orchard.
It looked like a small county fair. A cow doctor had been imported to
perform an operation on the bull. Mr. Epstein and his muzik, Michael,
almost came to blows in trying to decide which of them should put the
yoke on the bull's neck. No decent farmer will stand aloof in such a
crisis: so I threw my coat off and offered my services. The patient
made serious objections to me, but permitted the yoke to be adjusted
by a day labourer named Harvey Outhouse.

This Holstein aristocrat had a terrible come-down. He used to stalk
around as if he owned the earth, but now he is a common "hewer of wood
and drawer of water" like ourselves.

I see him occasionally, now, pulling a heavy load of stones or hay
past our place as meekly and quiet as the dull ox by his side, and
involuntarily I exclaim: "How are the mighty fallen!"

I have a horse and a cow. The artist of the community, who remains as
one of my family, took charge of the cow and the care of the horse was
distributed among the rest of us. The house is made comfortable and
snug for the winter and I have settled down here for the remainder of
my life.

With my family are these two comrades, the artist and the mechanic,
and we are in complete harmony in work and ideals. I have been a gypsy