SOCIAL SIDE OF COUNTRY LIFE 279 



pinks and hollyhocks. There was at least one horse 

 and one yoke of oxen to begin with, and they all 

 worked together for common welfare. 



This was what the Pilgrims had done, and they 

 had not hesitated to call their homes a Common- 

 wealth. The fields were largely tilled by mutual aid ; 

 tools were used in common, and crops largely held 

 in common. Have you ever considered the mean- 

 ing of the word neighborhood? These were all 

 neighborhoods, closely bound by common needs and 

 cooperation, building each other's houses, and doing 

 all sorts of things without hire. It was a meaner 

 life that, by and by, changed all this good will into 

 hard cash in the place of kindliness. Mothers 

 could call on neighbors' daughters for a week's serv- 

 ice, at any pinch, no one felt above doing house work, 

 and no boy was above field work. 



On Sunday the people gathered in one union 

 church on the " commons," and the good of the 

 service was quite as largely social as it was religious. 

 The people swapped news as freely as they listened 

 to long prayers, while friendly gossip about neigh- 

 borhood matters was very justly considered of as 

 much importance as information about the golden 

 paved city of a future life. The day of sects and 

 divided worship had not come in; all people were 

 truly brothers and sisters, and neighbors they were 

 in the sense of the parables of Jesus. 



Individuality worked itself out by one making 

 brooms, another shoes, and another weaving the 



