it’s a regular Child Garden, where they are cultivated and grow! And they do so love to growl”
She showed us her pretty little house and her lovely work — embroidery. “I’m so fortunate,” she said, “loving home as I do, to have work that’s just as well done here.”
I learned that there were some thirty families living in the grounds, not counting the hotel people. Quite a number found their work in the necessary activities of the place itself.
“We have a long string of places, you see — from the general manager to the gardeners and dairymen. It is really quite a piece of work, to care for some two hundred and fifty people,” Mrs. Masson explained with some pride.
“Instead of a horde of servants and small tradesmen to make a living off these thirty families, we have a small corps of highly trained officers,” added Nellie.
“And do you cooperate in housekeeping?” I inquired, meaning no harm, though my sister was quite severe with me for this slip.
“No, indeed,” protested Mrs. Masson. “I do despise being mixed up with other families. I’ve been here nearly a year, and I hardly know anyone.” And she rocked back and forth, complacently.
“But I thought that the meals were cooperative.”
“O, not at all — not at edit Just see my dining-room! And you must be tired and hungry, now, Mrs. Robertson — don’t say no! I’ll have lunch in a moment. Excuse pie, please.”
She retired to the telephone, but we could hear her ordering lunch. “Right away, please; No. 5; no, let me see — No. 7, please. And have you fresh mushrooms? Extra; four plates.”
Her husband came home in time for the meal, and she presided just like any other little matron over a pretty table and a daintily served lunch; but it came down from the hotel in a neat, light case, to which the remnants and the dishes were returned.
“O, I wouldn’t give up my own table for the world! And my own dishes; they take excellent care of them. Our breakfasts we get all together — see my kitchen!’’ And she proudly exhibited a small, light closet, where an immaculate porcelain sink, with hot and cold water, a glass-doored “cold closet” and a shining electric stove, allowed the preparation of many small meals.
Nellie smiled blandly as she saw this little lady claiming conservatism in what struck me as being quite sufficiently progressive, while Mr. Masson smiled in proud content.
“I took you there on purpose,” she told me later. “She is really quite reactionary for nowadays, and not over popular. Come and see the guest-house.”
This was a big, wide-spread concrete building, with terraces and balconies and wide roofs, where people strolled and sat. It rose proudly from its wide lawns and blooming greenery, a picture of peace and pleasure.
“It’s like a country club, with more sleeping rooms,” I suggested. “But isn’t it awfully expensive — the year round?”
“It’s about a third cheaper than it would cost these people to live if they kept house. Funny! It took nearly twenty years to prove that organization in housekeeping paid, like any other form of organized labor. Wages have risen, all the work is better done and it costs much less. You can see all that. But what you can’t possibly realize is the difference it makes to women. All the change the men feel is in better food, no fret and worry at home, and smaller bills.”
“That’s something,” I modestly suggested.
“Yes, that’s a good deal; but to the women it’s a thousand times more. The women who liked that kind of work are doing it now, as a profession, for reasonable hours and excellent salaries; and the women who did not like it are now free to do the work they are fitted for and enjoy. This is one of our great additions to the world’s wealth — freeing so much productive energy. It has im proved our health, too. One of the worst causes of disease is mal-position, you know. Almost everybody used to work at what they did not like — and we thought it was beneficial to character!”
I tried without prejudice to realize the new condition, but a house without a house-wife, without children, without servants, seemed altogether empty. Nellie reassured me as to the children, however.
“It’s no worse than when they went to school, John, not a bit. If you were here at about 9 A. M., you’d see the mothers taking a morning walk, or ride if it’s stormy, to the child-garden, and leaving the babies there, asleep mostly. There are seldom more than five or six real little ones at one time in a group like this.”
“Do mothers leave their nursing babies there?”
“Sometimes; it depends on the kind of work they do. Remember they only have to work two hours, and many mothers get ahead on their work and take a year off at haby time. Still, two hours’ work a day that one enjoys, does not hurt even a nursing mother.”
I found it extremely difficult from the first, to picture a world whose working day was but two hours long; or even the four hours they told me was generally given.
“What do people do with the rest of their time; working people, I mean?” I asked.
“The old ones usually rest a good deal, loaf, visit one another, play games, in some cases they travel. Others, who have the working habit ingrained, keep on in the afternoon; in their gardens often; almost all old people love gardening; and those who wish, have one now, you see. The city ones do an astonishing amount of reading, studying, going to lectures, and the theatres. They have a good time.”
“But I mean the low rowdy common people — don’t they merely loaf and get drunk?”
Nellie smiled at me good humoredly.
“Some of them did, for a while. But it became increasingly difficult to get drunk. You see, their health was better, with sweeter homes, better food and more pleasure; and except for the dipsomaniacs they improved in their tastes presently. Then their children all made a great advance, under the new educational methods; the women had an immense power as soon as they were independent; and between the children’s influence and the woman’s and the new opportunities, the worst men had to grow better. There was always more recuperative power in people than they were given credit for.”
“But surely there were thousands, hundreds of thousands, of hoboes and paupers; wretched, degenerate creatures.”
Nellie grew sober. “Yes, there were. One of our inherited handicaps was that great mass of wreckage left over from the foolishness and ignorance of the years behind us. But we dealt very thoroughly with them. As I told you before, hopeless degenerates were promptly and mercifully removed. A large class of perverts were in capacitated for parentage and placed where they could do no harm, and could still have some usefulness and some pleasure. Many proved curable, and were cured. And for the helpless residue; blin(l and crippled through no fault of their own, a remorseful society provides safety, comfort and care; with all the devices for occupation and enjoyment that our best minds could arrange. These are our remaining asylums; decreasing every year. We don’t make that kind of people any more.”
We talked as we strolled about, or sat on the stone benches under rose bush or grape vine. The beauty of the place grew on me irresistibly. Each separate family could do as they liked in their own yard, under some restriction from the management in regard to general comfort and beauty. I was always ready to cry out about interference with personal rights; but my sister reminded me that we were not
