Stout Silas Foster mingled little in our conversation; but when he
did speak, it was very much to some practical purpose. For instance:--
"Which man among you," quoth he, "is the best judge of swine? Some
of us must go to the next Brighton fair, and buy half a dozen pigs."

Pigs! Good heavens! had we come out from among the swinish multitude
for this? And again, in reference to some discussion about raising
early vegetables for the market:--"We shall never make any hand at
market gardening," said Silas Foster, "unless the women folks will
undertake to do all the weeding. We haven't team enough for that and
the regular farm-work, reckoning three of your city folks as worth
one common field-hand. No, no; I tell you, we should have to get up
a little too early in the morning, to compete with the market
gardeners round Boston."

It struck me as rather odd, that one of the first questions raised,
after our separation from the greedy, struggling, self-seeking world,
should relate to the possibility of getting the advantage over the
outside barbarians in their own field of labor. But, to own the
truth, I very soon became sensible that, as regarded society at large,
we stood in a position of new hostility, rather than new brotherhood.
Nor could this fail to be the case, in some degree, until the
bigger and better half of society should range itself on our side.
Constituting so pitiful a minority as now, we were inevitably
estranged from the rest of mankind in pretty fair proportion with the
strictness of our mutual bond among ourselves.

This dawning idea, however, was driven back into my inner
consciousness by the entrance of Zenobia. She came with the welcome