"Oh, no," answered Cleon, "she is selected—that is to say, the honor is offered to her; she may not accept it if she does not like; but a girl seldom refuses. She is no more likely to refuse the mission of Demeter than Chairo would be to refuse the Presidency. It is very hard work being President—very wearing; in fact, I should think it would be an awful bore; but nobody ever refuses it, because of the honor. I suppose it is the same thing with the mission of Demeter."

I was more and more puzzled, but despaired of getting satisfaction from Cleon.

CHAPTER II

HARVESTING AND HARMONY

We had finished breakfast now, and my hunger satisfied, I was free to look about me a little. The hall was lofty, and the roof supported by Gothic arches, sculptured by hands that had enjoyed the work; for although the design of the building was simple and dignified it was covered with ornaments of bewildering complexity. We were waited on by women who could not be distinguished from those upon whom they waited; of every age and of every type, most of them were glowing with health and cheerfulness. They laughed a great deal with one another, and offered me advice as to what they put before me; warned me when a dish was hot, and recommended the cream as particularly fresh and sweet. They made me feel as though I had been there for years and knew every one of them intimately. Just as we were finishing, a fine old man with a white beard and a patriarchal countenance joined us:

"You come from a couple of centuries ago," he said.

"Is it two centuries, or a thousand years?" asked I.

"I have been looking at your clothes; you don't mind, do you? they indicate the end of the nineteenth or beginning of the twentieth century."

"You have guessed right," said I; "and what year are you?"

"We count from the last Constitution which was voted ninety-three years ago, in 2011 of your reckoning. So we call the present year 93."

"So you have given up the old Constitution," I said with a touch of sentiment in my voice.

"Yes, it had to be changed when we advanced to where we are now in methods of manufacture and distribution of profits."

"Can you give your methods a name?"

"You used to call it Collectivism; we call it Solidarity."

"You mean to say you actually practise Collectivism!"

The patriarch smiled.

"Your writers used to say it was impossible," he said; "just as the English engineers once said the building of the Suez Canal was impossible, and our own engineers the building of the Panama Canal was impossible. As a matter of fact, Collectivism is as much easier than your old plan as mowing with a reaper is easier than mowing with a scythe. You will see this for yourself—and you will see" here his brow darkened—"that the real problem—the as yet unsolved problem—is a very different one. But Cleon must join the haymakers; what would you like to do?"

I was much interested in the old man and was anxious to hear what he had to say about the "as yet unsolved problem," which I already guessed. But I was still more anxious to be with Lydia, so I asked:

"Does Cleon work with his sister?"

"Yes," said Cleon, "on the slope, a few minutes from here."

"Perhaps I had better make myself useful," said I hypocritically.

I thought I detected a little smile behind the big white beard as the old man said to Cleon, "Well, hurry off now; you are late."

I followed Cleon up the hill. He explained to me on the way that the meadows were all cut by machinery, but that the slopes had still to be cut by hand. We soon came upon a group in which I recognized Lydia and Ariston. They were on a steep hill. Lydia was swinging her scythe with the strength and skill of a man. She was the nearest to me of a row of ten, all swinging together. Ariston was singing an air that followed the movement; he sang low; and all joined occasionally in a modulated chorus. Cleon took up a scythe and joined them. I was glad to observe that there was no scythe for me, for I had never handled one. I stood watching the work. When the song was over they worked in silence, but the rhythm of their swinging replaced the music. It reminded me of the exhilarating harmony of an eight-oared crew. At last one of the girls cried out, "I want to rest"; and all stopped.

"I was hoping some one would cry 'halt!'" said Ariston.

"So was I," whispered Lydia to him.

"So were we all," called out the rest.

They sat down on the grass; after a moment's breathing space Ariston lifted his hand; all looked at him, and he started a fugue which was taken up, one after another, by the entire party; to my surprise and delight I recognized Bach's Number Seven in C flat, and I began to understand the rôle that music might play in the life of a people, and what a pitiable business our twentieth-century notion of it was. Confined to a few laborious executants and still fewer composers, the rich partook of it at stated hours in overheated rooms, and the masses ignored it, except in its most vulgar form, almost altogether; while here, under a tree in the large light of the sun during an interval of rest, all not only enjoyed it, but joined in it at its best. I singled out Lydia's rich contralto and noted how she dwelt on the notes that marked changes of key, with a delight in counter-point that belonged to her mathematical temperament. I watched her every movement. She had thrown off the loose gloves she wore while mowing and was lying on her face, playing with a flower. The posture would have been regarded by us of the twentieth century as unmaidenly; but in the atmosphere created by the simplicity of these people I felt as though I were in one of Corot's pictures. Maidenliness had ceased to be a matter of convention and had become a matter of fact. There was a fund of reserve behind the frankness of Lydia's manner that conveyed a conviction of rectitude entirely beyond the necessity of a rigorous manner, or of a particular method of deportment.

I seemed to be transported back to the peasantry of some parts of France or of the Tyrol; but here was an added refinement that demolished the distance which had always kept me despairingly aloof from these; here was the charm of frankness, of gayety, and of simplicity, coupled with a cleanliness of person, delicacy of thought and manner, culture, art, music—all that makes life beautiful and sweet.

The young men and women who sat singing under the trees, smitten here and there with patches of sunlight, were all of them comely and wholesome of body and mind; but Lydia was to me preëminent; and yet, could it be said that she was beautiful? Her eyes were long and narrow and when I crossed glances with her they escaped me; so that I forgot the matter of beauty in my eagerness to penetrate their meaning; her face was too square to satisfy the ideal; her nose was distinctly tip-tilted, like the petal of a flower; her mouth was large and well shaped—altogether desirable; and her hair was flaxen and straight, but in its coils it seemed to have a separate life of its own so brightly did it gleam and glow.

Lydia was the first to jump up and suggest that work be resumed; and as she stood among the prostrate forms of her companions she embodied to my mind Diana, with a scythe in her hand instead of a bow. All arose together and set to work again, but in silence this time; and under the shade where I sat, nothing broke the quiet save the hum of insect life in the blazing sun and the periodic swirl of the reapers.