During those weeks in Maine, Lidia and Roan became close friends. 'Once at Green Acre,' Roan remembered, 'we were walking together and somebody said to us, "You're always together!" And Lidia said, "Well, there's a double bond between us. We're both Baha'fs and we're both Esperantists, so we like to be together."'
'From the picture of her father,' Roan OrloffStone recalled many years later, 'Lidia was exactly his image.' She had, Roan remembered fondly, such a 'love for Baha'u'llah, a love for Esperanto - it was a double love - that you didn't look at her beauty or her lack of beauty, you just saw her personality; you just saw her soul in her eyes.' 'When the name of Baha'u'llah was mentioned, or the language ofher father's invention,' Mrs Stone later wrote, 'as if through a miracle her whole personality changed . . . she forgot her own self as with shining eyes and vibrant voice she launched into discussion or recounted her experiences in her field of service. Especially did her face become illumined as she told of her pilgrimage to the Holy Land, her precious moments with the Greatest Holy Leaf, her talks with the beloved Guardian, her communion with God in the sacred shrines.'
The happy days at Green Acre passed quickly. At mealtimes they would sit around a large round table in a corner of the dining room. 'How heartily she laughed,' Roan recalled, 'when, at Sunday breakfast, I poured a river of maple syrup on my pancakes. "Roan, you're drowning!" she cried. On the other hand, she was very much displeased, and she made no secret of her displeasure, when I teased our co-eater, George Miller, more than I should have.'
Roan recalled that Lidia was 'always helping somebody. She was always there if anyone needed a word of comfort, or if anyone needed some advice as to what color to wear with something else, or if somebody had a spiritual problem to discuss. Finally she might say, "Well, why don't you write to Shoghi Effendi about it? He would help you."' But Lidia never talked about her own problems.
Even though there were only ten in the Esperanto class, Lidia gave it all her energy, teaching four hours a day. But, Roan confided to Della, 'She is pale andjust all worn out! And I'm a little bit worried about her.'
At the close of the course, the class gave Lidia a gift of nineteen dollars and, in addition, someone else, not a member of the class, who 'fell head over heels in love with her', presented her with a check for fifty dollars.
Roan had to return to her job at the Boston State House until the Labor Day holiday. 'My eyes were filled with tears,' she wrote to Della, 'and there was a lump in my throat as I took leave of mia amatino [my sweetheart].'
Months earlier, Lidia had received an invitation to visit the mountain retreat of Roy Wilhelm in North Lovell, Maine, after the
Esperanto course. A long-time member of the National Spiritual Assembly, Roy Wilhelm ran an import business in New York City. For many years he had been a close friend of Martha Root, whom he had introduced to the Baha'i Faith. Once the course at Green Acre was over, Lidia went to North Lovell to take up Mr Wilhelm's invitation. Elcore Ebersole from Lima, Ohio, was also there at the time. Many years later she recalled their sojoum: 'It was a fantastic home cut into the mountain high above the world. From a distance it looked like a huge cuckoo clock . . . Lidia and I were met by one of Roy Wilhelm's workers and driven to his mountaintop home.
'Lidia loved it there and just settled down as if she planned to stay a long time.' Apparently there was some misunderstanding as to just how long her invitation was for. Although Lidia planned to stay at least seventeen days, Elcore understood they were only invited for the weekend. 'After ten days,' Mrs Ebersole recalled, 'a cook asked me ifl had any idea how long she expected to stay. I told her I would speak to Lidia and assured her that we couldn't stay much longer.
'At breakfast one moming, Roy passed a plate ofbananas and said to Lidia, "Grab a banana and get to it." She asked me what he meant, and I said he meant that you should take a banana and peel it and cut it up on the cornflakes. At the close of a meal, Roy always said: "Now." Upon that command, each one at the table put his or her knee on the underside of the table where we put the folded napkin for the next meal. Lidia laughed at that command and waited each time for the table top to be raised by the pressure of knees.'
While staying at Roy Wilhelm's mountain home, Lidia had time to write to Harold Foulds, gently encouraging him in his spiritual search. 'In the world today there are many diverse "isms", schools, theories, philosophies, and we see people flocking to them,' she wrote. 'They grow rapidly, like wild weeds, and like weeds, rapidly die off. A tree which must stand for centuries grows slowly and slowly gives fruit. That is true of the rapidity with which superficial ideas spread and perish, while the great truths take root slowly in order to last a long, long time. The same is true also in relation to the individual in whose heart the roots of the tree of eternity only gradually become strengthened, while grasses of fantasy and man-made theories would quickly find a place in it. Therefore, may your heart be like rich ground, in which the roots of the tree ofetemity become strong. Plow the soil of your heart and water it with Divine wisdom and inspiration which this great Teaching of today's Messenger of God brings . . .'
'Lidia wasn't too happy about leaving that paradise,' Elcore Ebersole recalled, but at last they took a bus back to Kittery, Maine.
During the first week of August, Lidia returned to Green Acre. She was busy translating again. Earlier that year, Mrs Amelia Collins had told her that Shoghi Effendi wanted to ha ve Bahd 'u 'llah and the New Era translated into Polish. Although Lidia had never translated anything into Polish before, she had written the Guardian: 'If there is no one else to do this, I should try it, if you wish me rather to do this work than other translations into Esperanto. Though my present work takes nearly all my time I shall nevertheless try to do what you direct me to do.'
Now at last she had some free time, but rather than rest she worked feverishly, spurred on by a letter from Shoghi Effendi asking her to finish the translation as soon as possible. She hadn't been taking part in the prayer sessions at Green Acre regularly, she admitted in a letter to Roan, 'because there are various forms of prayer and one of them is work. But in spite of all the effort I don't accomplish as much as I would like to.'
Many Baha'fs visited Green Acre, and, staying there for almost the entire summer, Lidia was able to be with several people who had become very dear to her. Dorothy Baker, who was vacationing nearby, came to Green Acre and gave a talk on prayer and fasting. Afterward, Lidia wrote Roan, 'My dear, if I had come to America only to hear this talk and see the inspiration that spoke through her, even then the trip would have been worth ten times the effort. And when I compared myself to that inspired angel, I wept at my insignificance.'
May Maxwell, staying nearby in Portsmouth, had come to visit, she wrote Della.'Yesterday I had two hours privately with her in my room - simply heavenly!'
One of those who had attended the Esperanto lessons at Green Acre was Louis Gregory, the outstanding black Baha'f teacher. 'I leamed to love and admire him very much . . .' Lidia wrote. 'If some of those people who have racial prejudice could know him, they surely would understand well that there are few white people that one could compare to Mr Gregory!'
Roan retumed to Green Acre to find Lidia wrapped up in her translating. '"Shoghi Effendi," Lidiasaid, her face aglow, "has told me that I must hurry and finish this as soon as possible.'"