[Narrator] From time to time, all over New England, we
gather at our town hall to hammer out the public opinion in meetings like this. ♪ [music] ♪ Sometimes, the meetings get out of hand and
we argue back when the moderator wraps for order. But we like it that way because we figure
we elected him to the job in the first place. This particular meeting was pretty much like
all the rest, except that the moderator called on Joseph. Joseph was self-conscious and I had to persuade
him to speak. This was Joseph's first town meeting. His first and his last. Six months before, Joseph had been a stranger
to Cummington. As Joseph's minister, I felt I had come to
know him a little better than others had in those six months, and watching him speak,
as a neighbor and friend, I was remembering the day Joseph arrived with his wife, Anna,
and the others. ♪ [music] ♪ I had heard of these refugees at a conference
of ministers. They needed a place to live. My church had a house standing vacant. ♪ [music] ♪ And I had an idea. ♪ [music] ♪ Perhaps the refugees could have found another
place to live and undoubtedly, the good people of Cummington would have preferred it that way. But then, that's what gave me the idea. ♪ [music] ♪ The first night. What do people do their first night in a strange
house? ♪ [music] ♪ [singing] [music] Certainly, you don't want to talk to anyone. So I said good night and went home to work
on my sermon for Sunday. ♪ [music] ♪ Sunday was clear. A good day for church because we like to make
a social event out of it. It's a close community feeling we have about
our churches. We like to stand around and chat before the
service. ♪ [music] ♪ That's me with the blind organist. ♪ [music] ♪ Sometimes I think it's too close, almost parochial,
but maybe that's because originally, hundreds of years ago, our communities were built around
the church. First church in Cummington, 1780. First house, seven years later, 1787. Almost before I had begun my sermon, I heard
a commotion in the balcony and looked down to see the refugees filling in. Late, of course, as the widow, Suzanna Archer
said. I was moved because I knew they came from
many different churches and denominations: Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, and I took it
as a gesture to me. So I began again, taking my text from Leviticus. "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall
be unto you as one born among you and thou shall love him as thyself." I was sure it helped the lonely feeling of
the refugees. ♪ [music] ♪ I wasn't so sure about the townspeople of
Cummington. ♪ [music] ♪ Only time would tell. ♪ [music] ♪ Toward the end of the service,
I noticed one incident that gave me some hope. ♪ [music] ♪ [singing] I guess with the music and all, it was too
much for Anna. ♪ [music] ♪ singing But when I heard about Joseph's visit to the
grocery store, I began to realize sermons take a while to sink in. It seems he ran smack into the Old Stove League,
most exclusive club in America, and another place where the boys carve out public opinion. Everyone went right on doing what he was doing
and Joseph felt at first like no one knew was there. But that wasn't true because the minute his
back was turned, they looked up, curious as kittens, and Joseph knew it. I've given a lot of thought to that day, and I'm sure the boys were just as self-conscious as Joseph. The trouble was, no one knew how to begin,
how to make the first move. ♪ [music] ♪ So I realized I'd have to make the first move
myself. Take people by the arm and lead them together. ♪ [music] ♪ Peter, one of the refugees, had been a printer
of fine books, art editions, back in Austria. So I took him out to the Cummington Press
to meet Jim Orchard. ♪ [music] ♪ I knew Jim could understand the old man's
desire to get back to his craft. ♪ [music] ♪ It wasn't hard to tell that he'd been away
from his work for a long, long time. For all his politeness, he couldn't keep his
hands off the presses. ♪ [music] ♪ So, Jim agreed to take Peter under his wing
and as I left, Jim was already promising to take Peter over to see the collection of books
at the Bryant Memorial Library across the meadow from the Press. ♪ [music] ♪ The great American Poet's house has been kept
as it was the day he died, with his own collection of fine editions and manuscripts. ♪ [music] ♪ Here were the things Peter loved most. Things he'd been away from too long. ♪ [music] ♪ He must have remembered how many of these
same books he'd seen burned in the streets of his own hometown and he must have recalled
that Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, sat in this same room 100 years ago. Planning, arguing, writing against slavery
with their friend, Bryant. And a plan for the work he was going to do
began to form in Peter's mind. ♪ [music] ♪ Then, Max went to work helping out on the
widow, Suzanna Archer's farm. ♪ [music] ♪ Suzanna's boy had just been drafted and she
needed a man who could handle the farm machinery. Max had been a mechanic in Czechoslovakia. ♪ [music] ♪ And over at the saw mill, the workmen got
to know Sasha and understand his shyness in the best practical way, over the workbench. ♪ [music] ♪ During the summer, Joseph and Anna opened
a nick-nack shop and the local girls got into the habit of dropping around to help out. I used to come by myself on a Saturday afternoon
to enjoy a little music with Joseph and the hall girl. ♪ [music] ♪ Frankly, I think Joseph and Anna were a little
surprised to find Mozart in Cummington. Surprised and pleased. I think in many different ways, while we were
getting to know the refugees better, they were learning about the New England countryside
and its people. ♪ [music] ♪ Our land is similar to their own. Chopped into small one-man, two-man farms. The soil is difficult and the weather is cruel sometimes. ♪ [music] ♪ We're not the bread basket of America, but
if you work hard, the autumn harvest will give you back enough for your family and a
little left over to take to market. And of course, we set aside one of the best
of everything to exhibit at the fair. It's a hard life and often, a lonely life, and maybe that accounts for the way we act sometimes. ♪ [music] ♪ And with the fall, there was a harvest in
human relations, too. One day the boy from down the street came
bearing gifts. ♪ [music] ♪ He had a speech all prepared which he promptly
forgot like his mother knew he would. But it made me feel that perhaps my idea had
taken root too. ♪ [music] ♪ Out at the Press, Peter was having a harvest
of his own. He was finishing his woodcut of Bryant to
be displayed in the art exhibit at the fair. And the title page he designed for Emerson's
essay on "Self-reliance" was coming off the press. ♪ [music] ♪ He was back at work in his craft, a part of
a shop. ♪ [music] ♪ Then there was the night Joseph
was taken to sit with the Old Stove League. That was a good night. ♪ [music] ♪ I don't say all the self-consciousness was gone, but there was a new kind of respect on both sides. ♪ [music] ♪ I think the excitement of the fair must be
the same all over the world. To me, it's a celebration, putting the exclamation
point to the end of a good harvest. It brings people together to show off the
results of the year's work to their neighbors. To learn from each other in good, friendly
competition. ♪ [music] ♪ And at the end of the day, you know a little more
about yourself and your neighbor and you have a picture taken so you won't forget a good
day in your life. ♪ [music] ♪ I was thinking of all these things as I watched
Joseph speak. He was telling the town meeting that he would
be leaving soon to go home and help rebuild his own country. But, he'd take with him many things he'd learned
from his neighbors in Cummington. Picture of a land and people, very much like
his own. That's about all there was to my idea in the
first place. That the strangeness between people breaks
down when they live, and work, and meet together as neighbors. ♪ [music] ♪ I think the idea worked. At least if the boys on the post office porch
had been reluctant to welcome strangers, they were also reluctant to say goodbye to friends. ♪ [music] ♪
