I don’t suppose my ideal differed much from that of the average city bred man who has never had the good fortune to spend even his vacation in the country. Perhaps I was a little more visionary about them than some, because my life in the foreign quarter had roused my patriotism and driven me back into history for comfort. From that source I had created in my mind as representative a tall, gaunt individual of the Lincoln type with all Lincoln’s ruggedness of body and brain. I pictured him as honest to his very soul, as industrious to an extreme, as shrewd and thrifty, as brave and long suffering. So I still believe the old New Englander to have been; so I believe many of them are to-day. Perhaps I was unfortunate in finding at the very start three who did not live up to my standard, but I want to put down my experiences just as they came to me. If there were no more like these in the length and breadth of the whole land, here at least were three. And they were of the genuine old stock, uncontaminated by a single drop of new blood. * * * * * I received from people who read “One Way Out” much criticism to the effect that the experiences which befell me were not typical; that the conditions which I encountered would not hold in other places. Perhaps that is true. I don’t know. As I tried to make clear before, I’m not an investigator, nor a sociologist, nor a writer of tracts. I don’t claim to know any more than I have seen with my own eyes--than I have actually lived through. But I still believe that conditions, whatever they are, don’t matter if a man tackles them in the right spirit. I believe that, because I see every day men starting even and one failing and one succeeding. What I said in “One Way Out” I want to repeat here: I’m authority on nothing but myself. Just as Ruth and I, driven on by circumstances, went adventuring in the slums, so driven on by other if not such urgent circumstances we went adventuring in the country. And I approached my new and later life in a state of just as much absolute ignorance as I did the first. It was chance that led me to locate where I did, it was chance which furnished me with my neighbors; it was chance which furnished me with my opportunity. If this led me into an unexplored country and along paths never before trod by man, I thank my lucky stars. I don’t believe it, but I’m willing to let it go at that. I’m not much on argument. This then is a plain statement of what I saw with my new eyes--the eyes of an immigrant into the country. It is a plain statement of what I did and what I learned and the people I met. I don’t claim that it’s either typical or important. The life of one man isn’t apt to be. Here it is, however, without any further explanation or apology, for what it’s worth, and if anyone gets as much fun out of reading it as I have had in living it, I won’t consider I’ve wasted my time in writing it.