Part 7

Then, the final Big Adventure was brought about by my articles in our weekly newspaper.

I had been running a series of articles on my Finding-Youth revelations. Some of them were copied in other newspapers. Ben Hutchins, out in California, read them in our own paper, which we sent him each week. Afterwards, his daughter told me that he showed them to the different guests in the hotel where they were stopping.

Then I wrote an article on the old-age problem. I headed it, “Why the Dump-Heap?” Among other things, I said that one of the biggest social wastes was the waste of the latter years of the lives of men and women. Instead of being a waste product at eighty, a man should be a Life masterpiece-still creative. But we cling-theoretically, at least-to the savage belief that man possesses no other creative power than the sex-function; and that, after they have passed the age of race-propagation, men and women are of no further social use. Savages, not knowing what else to do with their people of years, kill them. We let them stagnate.

By this time we should have learned that Life here, and always, is a thing creative. We are incidentally parents. We are creators always. For if God made us in His own image, then He made us all creators. As creators, we grow. And growth is the law of life. Stagnation is decay and death. We must have new educational methods. We must have new ideals-a new heaven. And this new heaven will be a place filled with creators, instead of with stagnant resters.

Then I went on to suggest that society might organize Youthland colonies, instead of relegating each year so many thousands of men and women to the fate of dependence and stagnation. These colonies might be made centres of big usefulness, of broad education and creative growth.

I outlined my scheme of a Youthland colony. It should be a place of individual homes, with certain coöperative community buildings-an auditorium and recreation centre, a hotel and laundry, and other things, to make living easier and cheaper. The members of the colony themselves would support all these institutions. For there would be different light industries for the ones who wished to work and earn their own living.

There would be lectures, music, dancing, and classes in science, sociology, politics, psychology, literature, languages, and the arts. Everyone would be given the chance and encouraged to take up any kind of creative work in which he might feel himself capable of qualifying.

Well, Ben Hutchins read this article, and it struck instant fire in him. He didn’t even wait to write. Instead he telegraphed:-

“Youthland colony good scheme. California right place to start one. Am writing my lawyer to sell printing-plant. You come out here.”

I laughed. Of course I had no idea that he really meant this. I had believed everything that I had written about my colony, but I had painted it with my own imagination. Then I worried. He might be taking this way of selling his plant and letting me out. I lay awake nights, trying to figure some scheme whereby I myself might make a small payment and get hold of the plant.

I had a proposition all framed, when I received a letter from Hutchins. It was-for him-a long letter, dictated to a stenographer. In it he gave me to understand that he was in earnest about the Youthland colony scheme. Indeed, he had already bought a tract of land and was setting to work on the project. He wrote a lot of instructions: informed me that, if he could not sell the newspaper to advantage, he meant to have the plant shipped to California. It would be a necessary adjunct to the colony. He was enthusiastic. His health had greatly improved; he was in love with California, and both he and his daughter wanted to stay there. But he must have something with which to busy himself; and this colony scheme had made a big hit with him.

* * * * *

Well, that is how our California Youthland Colony came into existence. It is another story, but I must tell you a few things about it. It is located in a beautiful spot-where “the ocean and the mountains meet.”

We are now a group of five hundred, all owning our own homes. Some of these homes are larger and more pretentious than others; for some of our colony members have good big incomes. Others are poor. But we are all inspired by the same ideals. The poorer ones are given the opportunity to pay for their homes on easy monthly installments.

We have a small canning factory; and we make a fine grade of candied California fruits. We do some rug-weaving and pottery work. We have a dairy and poultry yards. All of these industries are coöperative in character-owned in common. The same is true of our small inn and laundry. They give employment to the ones who want to make their living. But we have no drones. Every Youthlander works. He also plays. Some devote themselves to raising small-fruits and English walnuts on their individual land tracts. Some teach in our school.

We have all kinds of classes in our school. We have expert instruction in diet, exercise, rest, and the things which make for the best physical condition. It is my intention to incorporate some of these lessons in another book-the methods which we have worked out to our own advantage. We have almost no sickness. Our members are a vigorous, useful, busy lot of folks. They live out-of-door lives twelve months of the year. They are filled with all sorts of progressive interests. They think right thoughts. In connection with our physical work, we have dancing classes, also a hiking club that makes interesting trips.

An ex-college president has charge of our educational work. A retired manufacturer is general director of our industries. And these two men are not using any back-number methods. Both are inspired by the spirit of youth. They combine with the modern the best values brought out of their long experience.

Some of our members have been encouraged to write. A number are studying music. Mattie, my wife, is enjoying that privilege. One woman of seventy, who never before had the time or chance to study the piano, has displayed considerable musical ability. In a good-sized French class, no member is under sixty. And there are two art classes.

Ben Hutchins is the colony’s shrewd buyer. He drives his own car out through the country, and contracts for the fruit that is put up in our cannery. They made me the first colony president, and each year have insisted on reëlecting me. Next year I am going to decline. I don’t want to get into the presidential rut. Jimmy Shaw is foreman of the job department in our printery. Jimmy has had a romance which he has given me permission to tell some time.

My son George and his family are with us. This year we are expecting Walter and his family for a visit. I was able also to bring Miss Marsh out to our colony. I feel that I owe her a very big debt.

Miss Marsh has let her hair grow gray; and the color now in her cheeks has been put there by the Californian sunshine. But she looks years younger than when she was trying to live an artificial youth. She is, in fact, quite radiant. For she is satisfying a big heart-hunger. My wife always contended that she was a lonely little creature. But even Mattie was surprised to discover that Miss Marsh’s loneliness was due to a craving motherhood. She is now one of the nurses who have the care of the colony’s children. For we have about thirty children-orphans who would have been sent to state institutions. We have adopted them, and are bringing them up and educating them. We father and mother, uncle and aunt, and grandfather and grandmother them. Happy little Miss Marsh is seldom seen without one of our colony babies in her arms.

It is Christmas Eve. I have seated myself by my typewriter in my cozy study, to write the last lines of this story. Mattie is down at the Auditorium, helping to trim the Christmas tree for the children. I just came up from there. Our picturesque little vine-covered bungalow is on the hill. The Christmas tree had so many helpers that I was not needed. Miss Marsh is joyously superintending the whole thing. Our different members are coming and going. Each brings an armful of presents.

I stood a while and watched their beaming, happy faces. Most of them have known a good many Christmas Eves. One-a hearty old Pacific sea-captain of eighty-showed me some toy ships he had whittled out with his knife. He called my attention to all the proper nautical detail. No builder of big ocean liners could have felt more pride in his accomplishment. I watched him carefully place the toy ships with the other presents underneath the Christmas tree; and the fact was impressed upon me that he had caught the real Christmas spirit. He had created something, which would carry his own creative joy into the lives of others. And is not this-the carrying of one’s own creative joy into the lives of others-the very essence of the thing which we vaguely call “service”?

When I reached the brow of the hill on my way home from the Auditorium, I halted and looked back at our little Youthland Colony, lying there in the moonlight. Out beyond, the moonbeams made a glistening pathway to it across the dusky waters of the old Pacific. At the back, rose the dim shapes of the mountains. The sweet odor of orange-blossoms filled the air. In this beautiful spot our little group was trying to realize the creative life-the life of continued growth and usefulness. Deep emotion stirred within me.

My gaze traveled out over the moonlighted ocean, and I thought of the many peoples of the globe celebrating this Christmas Eve. Gratitude for my own wonderful opportunity made me want to help these others. For I knew that nations, like individuals, were suffering in the grip of the old-age spirit-that effort of fear to strangle growth and progress. If only mankind might learn that the value of a nation depends upon the usefulness of all of its men and women, upon the youth-spirit, which is courageous, venturesome, and optimistic enough to make the whole human race one great world-family.

Off in the distance the old mission bell began to ring. It was sending out its mediæval understanding of the Christmas message, which the Voice spoke to the Shepherds of old. But we, in our Youthland Colony, have learned that the Voice, all down through the years, has been trying to make man understand that he must follow the guiding star and find the tidings of great joy in the birth of his own creative self-the God Power within his own being. When a man gains this interpretation of the Voice’s message he becomes an influence for growth and progress in the Great Life-Adventure-

HE FINDS YOUTH!

Transcriber’s Notes