Hens and Chickens Read Online Free PDF Page B

from Philadelphia via Massachusetts and who brought with them into the wilderness brotherly love and acceptance of all.
    But despite what some might think (given my sacred profession) I don’t believe that organized religion has had a hand in creating the benevolence that exists today in Sovereign, Maine. I believe it was more likely a smaller appendage, the pint-sized hand of a trusting child tucked inside the calloused paw of a parent or friend or neighbor, which beget the goodness of this community, a community in which kindness, forbearance and mercy have always been—sovereign.
    You might suspect, then, that Sovereign folks are vigilant against marauding bands of evil and greed, and are quick to bolt their doors lest one snake in the garden despoil the whole spot. But if you think that, “you’d be wrong,” as Wendell Russell would say, chuckling at the notion of locking his door, which doesn’t even have the hardware for such a queer operation.
    Sovereign folks have always been welcoming folks (and I know this from personal experience). It doesn’t matter who you are or where you harken from or even how often you beat your dog or curse your wife – you are gladly received into communal fellowship. For Sovereign folks know that Evil cannot stand and look Good in the face. Wickedness always averts its eyes before the divinity of Love, which is Lord of All. Evil requires fear upon which to feed, much like a vampire requires fresh blood, and when a soul seeks shelter in love it has nothing to fear.
    Therefore, miraculously, the thieves who move to Sovereign become philanthropists, giving away 10 times all they ever thought to steal; the swindlers revert to upstanding citizens and members of the Board of Selectmen; the gossips and back-stabbers transform into harbingers of good news, ferreting out all the spots in Sovereign where the fiddleheads and mushrooms are hiding and sharing that precious information with their neighbors; and the liars and the cowards convert to Methodism and develop altruistic and self-abnegating streaks that occasionally have to be treated with doses of blackstrap molasses, especially in February (so perhaps there is some small validity to the theory that organized religion has benefited Sovereign).
    When the hippies arrived en masse from the Eastern cities in the ‘70s, Sovereign folks found their alternative, back-to-the-land lifestyle refreshing and rejuvenating. Instead of driving the young people away or shunning them like some other Maine communities, residents of Sovereign welcomed the hippies, enjoying the opportunity of revisiting the forgotten arts of homesteading – the cabin building, the root cellaring, the butter churning, the maple sugaring – arts that had been passed down by their ancestors for nearly 200 years but which had been in danger of becoming extinct in the 20 th century. Sovereign folks, especially the old timers, thought it was a “darn good chance” to have the hippies homestead in Sovereign, bringing the past back to life, and thus once again the town’s open-door policy enlarged the general goodness of the community.
    Perhaps, at this point, you might be raising “a doubter of truth,” as Wendell Russell would say; a yellow caution flag. Perhaps you might be secretly suggesting to yourself something such as: Why – if the town of Sovereign is so truly good and gracious – why aren’t more than 1,048 souls living there? Why doesn’t everybody live there?
    Why doesn’t everybody live there?
    Unfortunately, this is not a question I can answer. For I do live in Sovereign, now, in an old homestead on the Cross Road. But if you do not inhabit our benevolent community, perhaps you can answer that, or answer the even more germane: Why is my town not more like Sovereign?
    You might also be conjecturing to yourself: If goodness and mercy are as catching as the storyteller claims (like the measles), why has charity not infected every community throughout the