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Bean picking, we discovered, was a sort of obligato, a repetitive figure dull in itself, providing rhythmic accompaniment for the larger symphony of consciousness, with melody of voice floating amid violin breezes and piccolo birds all rising heavenwards under the white-splotched blue dome of an orchestra hall. Beans kept time for two lovers to make beautiful music together.

And so it went with the weeding. Each new weed, staunch and muscular in its defiance, posed a new mental knot to untangle. One was fat and scrappy; the next lanky and sinuous. One’s roots might encroach upon the tomato vine; another’s stalk might mimic it. And then, without warning, our bodies went at it solo while our minds soared into the skies. How strange was the oscillation. One minute we despaired of ever finishing a row. The next, Mary asked, “What was so bad about Descartes, you were saying?”

When our two-day marathon in the garden was over, we came to a strange realization. These tasks that we had most put off—this bean-picking and this hoeing—were why we had come here.

The inventors and engineers may have overlooked something: physical labor is self-automating. Somehow in the labyrinth of neurons that interlace mind and body, certain tasks can be learned and repeated semiconsciously while other tasks are added. Natural opiates called endorphins must enter in next, numbing awareness of the lower functions, liberating the mind for higher ones. The human body contains its own well-oiled “laborsaving” mechanisms.

But this mechanical metaphor is only that. Music may come closer to what we really experienced, for in the work many of our fondest longings harmonized. Still, what we performed in the garden could not be reproduced in a piano practice-room. For life as we knew it now, Chopin was only a prelude.

Perhaps this, then, was the secret the Millers had kept to themselves and were too busy—and tranquil—to talk about: it was easier to do than to describe.

Four

Artfully Answering

Nature

Just when we thought we’d overcome our biggest hurdles, disaster struck. Our little farmstead rested snugly in the lap of a partially wooded hill that, under normal circumstances, afforded mild protection from the weather. On one overcast afternoon, however, the hill and woods simply disappeared. It was as if a curtain had fallen. The torrent soon hitting our metal roof was so heavy it drowned out the sound of our own voices. Over the next three days, the deluge abated only slightly. We found out later that it was the residue of a major hurricane that had blasted one of the coasts.

A foot of a hill is not a good place to find oneself after a rain like this. When it ended, our back porch, chicken coop, woodshed, and farrowing house oozed with the runoff from our earthen protector.

We were truly at a loss. We didn’t know where to begin. As we listlessly gazed at the damage, a buggy pulled up quietly in the backyard and Mr. and Mrs. Miller, with two older sons, spilled out. By the end of a busy morning, Mary and I, together with the house and outbuildings, were aired out and good as new. With little fanfare, our rescuers in their two-seater disappeared over the hill.

It was as though some sort of reverse-hurricane had struck: four smiling cyclones, bending and gyrating about the property, airing out rugs and casting off debris while spewing out a bit of cheerful chatter. The phenomenon was swift-moving, decisive, unexplained. As they left, Mrs. Miller uttered the words, “I hope we didn’t interrupt your schedule!”

The event brought to mind a theory I’d read about the “moral economy of the peasant.” The political scientist James Scott, observing a lively practice of neighborly aid among Southeast Asian villagers, concluded that the absence of modern technology made interdependence a matter of sheer survival. The fickle forces of nature thus triggered a counteracting human solidarity, which itself fed a yearning for togetherness that seemed natural. The process appeared to begin