This practical communism--borrowed from the Indians, among whom it was
inviolable--was, in the matter of hospitality, the rule of all,--a
reciprocation of good offices, in the absence of all houses of public
entertainment, becoming a social necessity. The manner of its exercise
hearty, a knitting of the people together,--no one was at a loss for a
winter camp when travelling. Every house he saw was his own, the
bustling wife, with welcome in her eyes, eager to assure your comfort.
The supper being laid and dealt sturdily with, the good man's pipe and
your own alight and breathing satisfaction,--a neighbor soul drops in to
swell the gale of talk, that rocks you at last into a restful sleep. How
now, my masters! Smacks not this of Arcady?
Early and universal marriage was the rule. Here you received the
blessings of home in the married life, and the care of offspring. There
were thus no defrauded women--called, by a cruel irony, "old maids"; no
isolated, mistaken men, cheated out of themselves, and robbed of the
best training possible for man. This vital fact was fraught with every
good.
On the young birds leaving the parent nest, they only exchanged it for
one near at hand--land for the taking; a house to be built, a wife to be
got--a share of the stock, some tools and simple furniture, and the
outfit was complete.
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