Even if they read upon subjects quite foreign to their own occupations, some knowledge would be gained. Knowledge from whatever source is valuable, and some day will, without a doubt, come into play. In this fast century many people who are able financially eschew a country life, and flock bag and baggage to the cities. There are some instances wherein a city life is more desirable than life in the country. Admitted that the city dweller can hear the best lectures of the day, and now and again witness a play of genuine merit upon the stage, yet there are pleasures in a country life which will outbalance those privileges, and of which I cannot help speaking now and again when my pen flows freely and I am in the humor. When writing of life in the country I do not mean twelve miles from a lemon, as Gail Hamilton writes in her New England bower, but rather within easy reach of the daily mail. Around me are no signs of want. The examples of wretchedness the city dweller has brought to his notice so very often we know not of. It is truly said, “that one-half of the world does not know how the other half lives.” So far as our pleasures and feelings are concerned we do not want to know, _i.e._, while we are willing to relieve the distressed we are glad that such examples do not come before us to harrow our feelings. My hardwood fire burns brightly in the open fireplace as I sit behind double windows defying the 7° below zero without to penetrate, and my books and papers rest upon my writing-desk within easy reach of my hand. The children come in from their slides upon the ice with cheeks aglow and faces on fire, induced from the sudden change from the cold outside to the genial warmth within. You city dweller would think half-grown boys and girls too big to enjoy their hilarious, life-giving fun, and would want them to be nicely dressed and walk your city streets in the prim of propriety. The examples of all great men and women prove distinctly that in order to be such you must first have good constitutions to support big brains, and our children by this are laying the foundations of such sound constitutions. Soon enough they will be men and women, and let them have their fun as long as they can. In this locality most of our lands are held by inheritance. The sons of the pioneers who cleared the forests are the owners of the soil as a rule to-day. The rising generation, the immediate sons of the pioneers, are not as a rule equal to the old stock. The reason is, so far as I can judge, that they have seen the hard toil and steady, unchangeable life of their future, and having received a little education, which their fathers did not possess, they judge themselves too smart to follow their fathers’ footsteps. A good many of these sons, as I have before remarked, flock to the cities to live as half gentlemen, and very many others lease their farms to tenants, and reside in the towns hereabout.