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Edward’s eyes were half-closed. Finally he said, “Do you want them alphabetically or how?”

Grace volleyed a lightning-fast comeback; Edward rejoined. Fireworks…

After Grace left the room to cry, Edward turned to me and took in a deep breath. “Grace needs all the encouragement we can give her. Not the kind I’ve been giving.” But he added in a soft voice, in partial self-exoneration, “It’s her arthritis.”

As if reading my thoughts, he blathered on: “Grace makes fun of me because when I start working, I can really get at it. Then at the end of the day, I just lie there. I just really enjoy that. I can read the newspaper or a book. But Grace’s still working until nine or ten at night, puttering around. And then the next morning, she says she’s so tired. I try to tell her to manage better, and she’d get it done faster. But if you saw her family. When they get together…” He slowly opened and closed his hand to demonstrate a yapping motion, and rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s just the way they are. They like to talk, and the work just comes afterwards.”

The more I got to know Edward and Grace, the harder it became to resist this conclusion: they were an example of how not to get involved in a Minimite community. Edward’s tendency was to extremes—from breakneck work to self-satisfied indolence, from impish wit to deadpan sobriety, and from religious disillusionment to iron absolutism. Grace, for her part, was a lovely soul, but she couldn’t keep up the pace. She kept getting caught in the spokes of his shifting cycles.

They didn’t so much need community; they needed counseling.

Harvey

One day there came a knock at the door—a heavier and slower knock than I was used to hearing. In the doorway stood a young man of burly bearing, smiling widely. He introduced himself as Harvey, Mr. Miller’s oldest, married son. And he had come to sell me a pig.

“A pig?” I asked.

“Don’t you have a lot of extra milk you’re just letting go to waste?” he returned. “That’s what I heard.” (Waste was anathema to Minimites of all stripes.) Harvey pointed out that if we started feeding a small pig now, we might have our own homegrown meat supply before Thanksgiving. He could sell me the shoat cheap because it had a rupture and wouldn’t last much longer in a pen with other, prodding pigs. Twenty dollars for the pig.

I told him I’d think about it.

I hated wasting milk, and I loved the thought of a fresh meat supply. My only hesitation was pecuniary. Twenty dollars was forty percent of our monthly food budget.

After considering the proposition a few days, I met Harvey again in Mr. Miller’s barnyard. This time his wife and child were with him on a spring wagon. I walked up to them and said hi. It wasn’t hard to get a conversation going. When he chuckled, two large dimples formed on either side of his mouth and his well-rounded belly shook noticeably. He was not nearly as reserved as his dad; in fact, he was downright jolly. I reminded him we hadn’t completed our pig transaction yet, but if he pleased, I preferred to pay in labor. He didn’t think but a minute. Suddenly I was being whisked away on his wagon.

We passed his father on the way out, pausing long enough for Mr. Miller to warn me: “Watch out for that guy. Make sure they give you enough to eat. He’s liable to eat the food off your plate.”

Harvey chuckled, and off we drove.

I mentioned, swaying as we rounded a bend, that he was lucky to have such an insightful father.

“You’re right.” Harvey sighed good-naturedly. “When I was younger I rebelled, but now that I’m away I appreciate him. From a distance!” He chuckled and heehawed. “No, I really should consider myself fortunate. Could’ve done a lot worse.”

Harvey and Gertie, who appeared to be in their late twenties, occupied the wagon seat with their baby while I perched on an overturned bucket behind them. For a while it was all downhill on a narrow gravel road, and the horse was not timid. I struggled to keep my balance as we lurched around curves and over bumps. We forded creeks and veered near the