Minot
Pratt, our head farmer, had some sort of interest in a place across the
brook, and there may have been a pig-pen there, but if there was one on
our place it was unknown to sharp-eyed youngsters who knew every
rabbit-run in the woods, and every swallow's hole in the sand banks.
Many of the farmers were vegetarians and most of them had a Hebraic
aversion to pork. That viand was never seen on the table except with the
baked beans always served on Sunday; Mother Rykeman managing to keep on
hand a supply of middlings for the bean-pot.
Hawthorne cherished kindly memories of Brook Farm and these memories
embodied in the Blithedale Romance show his warm and appreciative
interest in the life of the community. I fail to find anything like the
portrait-painting which others have discovered in the delineations of
Blithedale characters. There are personal traits alluded to suggestive
of Dr. Ripley, of Georgiana Bruce, of Orestes Brownson and others, but
these hints are not definite enough to identify them with the personages
of the book.
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