Once Upon a Time in Freeville

Once upon a time there was a small town called Freeville. The people of Freeville were the happiest in the world because they were free. They gloried in how free they were, and told visitors and people from other towns about it all the time whenever they met.

Freeville was situated on the east bank of the Swift River in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains. Across the river on the west bank lay most of the good farmland. There the land was flat and the soil was deep and fertile. Wide fields of swaying grain and dense orchards laden with fruit abounded there.

Most of the people of Freeville lived in town on the east side of the Swift River and had to cross it to work in their fields and orchards on the west side. For a long time there had been only two ways to cross the river. One way was to pay Giles the ferryman a bushel of grain or fruit. Then he would take you across in his boat. The other way was to swim.

Everyone thought this was a great system for crossing the river, because everyone was free to make their own choice. The better-off farmers always freely chose to pay Giles and ride the ferry. It cost them but they arrived on the other side safe and dry. The not-so-well-off farmers and the workers who labored for the farmers always freely chose to swim, because they had no extra grain or fruit to trade for a ride. Some died every year, but that was accepted as part of the inevitable price of freedom. Fate acted in strange ways, and who was to question it? At least they had died free, after freely choosing their means of crossing the Swift River.

Then one day a citizen of Freeville named Newell was telling a visitor about the wonderful freedom the Freevillians enjoyed. But to his surprise the visitor did not marvel. Instead, he laughed derisively. He scoffed, "You besotted oafs have not even a bridge across your river, and many die every year because of it!" Newell was taken aback. "What is a bridge?" he asked. The conversation became so interesting Newell invited the stranger home for dinner. Through the evening the two worked together to draw a picture of a bridge. Newell found out everything he could about how to build one.

After bidding his guest good bye the next morning, Newell was bursting with enthusiasm to tell everyone in Freeville about the bridge. He showed them the drawing and described how it could be built. It would be the best thing that had happened in Freeville in a long time! All his friends became enthusiastic. Many lives would be saved.

But Newell had not thought things through. Fortunately, Giles heard of the gathering crowd and came to talk to them. "Whence heard you of this bridge idea?" he asked Newell. "From a visitor to Freeville," Newell responded. "From a stranger?" asked Giles incredulously. "From the Unfree people? How can a free idea come from an Unfree stranger?" he asked. No one could think of an answer. Everyone knew that everything about Freeville was the best.

"Such a structure would take away our freedom!" declared Giles. "Now we have the choice to ride the ferry or swim. That is freedom. But with the bridge everyone would take the bridge. Our choice would be taken away. Liberty would be sacrificed for security, and foreign philosophies like Togetherism would rule the land! People would be interfering with the natural order of Fate. The next thing you know, we would all be slaves with no freedom at all!"

Giles' brilliant logic had won the day. All the people admitted the error of their ways, including Newell. Of what had they been thinking? The people of Freeville went back to being happy and free. The next spring, when Newell's son died in the Swift current, of course he was sad. But he was also proud, proud that his son had died free.

And they all lived happily ever after. Except the ones who didn't.