gh. I walked to the edge, pushed the
branches of the elder bushes aside and out there in front of me lay
that glorious valley and beyond the valley over the top of my house
lay the mighty river like an unsheathed sword!

On that ledge I have built a platform of white birch and behind the
platform a bungalow from the window of which I have a full view of the
valley, the Westchester County hills and the river. I have named the
ledge "Ascension Point" in memory of the valued friendships formed at
the church on Fifth Avenue.

On the edge of the amphitheatre-shaped meadow, beside the old road
that leads to the river, stands the farmhouse. It is sheltered from
winter winds by the hills and from summer sun by elm, maple and walnut
trees.

There is nothing to boast of in the arrangement; it was built quickly
and not over-well. If the man who planned it had any more taste than a
cow he must have expressed it on the building of the barn, not on the
house. It had been heated with stoves for years, but I tore away the
boards that covered the open fireplaces. I built a cistern on the hill
and a cesspool down in the meadow, and between them, in a large room
in the house, arranged a bathroom, a big bathroom, big enough to swing
a cat around.

I am now knocking a wall down here and there, wiping some outbuildings
off the map, and by degrees making it habitable throughout the year.

There is a five-acre orchard on the hill east of the house and through
it runs a brook that can be turned to good account.

I had a population of twenty-five during the summer. They were
encamped within a few hundred yards of each other in tents, overhauled
barns, etc. We were all hand-picked Socialists--dreamers of dreams.

Of course we had to eat and as the raw-food fad did not appeal to us
we had to have a fire on which to cook; and as there was an abundance
of wood I instituted a wood pile!

To any one about to form a cooeperative community I can recommend this
institution as an infinitely better gauge of human character than
either the ten commandments or the royal eight-fold pathway! We didn't
need much wood and there were plenty of men. We had good tools and--I
was going to say, "wood to burn."

"It was jolly good fun, don't you know," to hack up about three
sticks; then the woodcutter would have a story to tell or he "had
something he had left undone for days." There was an atmosphere around
the pile that affected us as the hookworm affect