I do not dare record all
the adventures which clustered around us at Four Oaks. People who know
only the monotonous life of cities would not believe the half if told,
and I do not wish to invite discredit upon my story of the making of the
factory farm.
The incidents I have given of the strike at Gordon's mine are
substantially correct, and I would love to follow them to their
sequel,--the cooeperative mine; but as that is a story by itself, I
cannot do it now. I promise myself, however, the pleasure of writing a
history of this innovation in coal-mining at an early date. It is worth
the world's knowing that a copartnership can exist between three hundred
equal partners without serious friction, and that community in business
interests on a large scale can be successfully managed without any
effort to control personal liberty, either domestic, social, or
religious. Indeed, I believe the success of this experiment is due
largely to the absence of any attempt to superintend the private
interests of its members,--the only bond being a common financial one,
and the one requisite to membership, ability to save a portion of the
wages earned.
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