Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1911-05-20
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BEING CoNTENTED


written Specially for The Bulletin-)
When Hank and l are sweating and
filling our fingers with slivers putting
up a new barn-yard fence, we hear an
occasional roar up the road, and along
comes an automobile with a very pros
porous looking party aboard, sky moot
ing through the sunny afternoon at
the rate of thirty miles an hours-or
more.
1t certainly looks as II they must
have more money than Hank and /,
for our united earnings for a year
wouldn't buy another such car. More
over, it looks as if they We're having
an easier job than ours. Still fur
Their il seems as if they must be en-
loving life more than we. To be sure,
there is worse work than building a
'loarn-yard fence from splintery chest
nut posts and boards, but all the same,
it looks at the outset as il 1T We're
harder and moro disagreeable, for the
time being. than kicking up dust in a
bubble wagon.
Now. this being the situation, the
question arises whether Hank and L
shall "get a crouch on and turn an
archists, or drop the hammer and
nails and start for town to earn our
own automobiles.
It's a question which comes to all
our minds, in one form or another at
one time or another. The old way to
treat it was to 'squelch' ito call it
silly,-to order il out of our mindS,-to
dismiss it from court. The more mod
errt and, / think. the wiser way with
all such questions is to meet them
squarely face to face and have it out
with them. There are d whole lot of
really fundamental questions in life
questions which go daring1y at the
very foundations of things. 1t is not
sensible,-even though it may have
long been usual,-to refuse these ques-
lions any hearing in court through
fear of social or other conventions, or
through doubt as to the .precedents.
1t is more manly to meet them face
to face and let them ask and be asked
in return. Not only is it more manly
but I think it is more satisfactory.
It's poor farming which plows for
ever around loose stump in the cen
ter of the best field. because it has
been there ever since we can remem-
Der and turning around it seems
sier and quicker than digging it
out. Easier and quicker it doubtless
is for one blowing. But not for half
a-dozen plowings,-not for the pillow
under and around that old stump if
we could get 1t it and use it. Also,
we waste more time, eventually in
lodging it than we should require to
eliminate it. And.-if it be pitch
pine stump.-there are a lot of grand
kindlings for future kitchen fires in
those gnarled roots.
So it is with the barn-yard fence
and the automobile problem. Shall
We push it one side as an impertinent
intruder? Shall We refuse to con-
slider it? Shall we figuratively punch
st down to the bottom of a, post-hole
md set a post on it and lamp them in
hard and solid? Or shall we look it
right in the eye and say: We'll, what
do YOU really meano and what are you
really after 2"
Take this particular auto. 1t was
an imposing looking critter of much
brass and glass and rubber and glitter
and honk and stink,-to the rearward.
1t had as passengers stolid-looking
driver, a thin and haggard-faced o1o
man, a very stout and masterful look
ing lady. presumably his wife, and two
much yelled and scarfed and ribbon
ed younger women, probably the
daughters. All of them, except the
shauffeur, who was intent upon the
manipulation of his steering wheel and
his numerous levers and treads, seem
ed to be absorbed in road-dust- They
were either trying to keep it out of
their eyes or staring at the gray road :
ribbon ahead of them.
When l looked Up from my work I
could see on one side of me old Doug
lass Knob, heaving massive shoulders
against the skyline and gently wav-
ing tree-plumed een1panonship to-
wards me. On the other side Perry
Peak doomed, higher though more dis
tant, with thu snow at last all off its
rounded ridge and a few adventurous
sheep already rambling over its
srassed summit, picking at the just
springing heritage. If /, turned around,
half-adozen pine covered knobs
closed in the near distance and gave
tempting,suggestion of the cosy monks
behind and among them In another
direction extended the level intervale
with it's spreading meadows whose
grass is already beginning to wave
in little ripples of green giadness as
the May breezes fiutter by.
All this was open to me and free to
me. and I was able to take it all in
and enjoy it all. Moreover, there was
much mere to it than just this open
vTsi0n of a landscape. When / looked
picture, but / also saw some little
ways into that picture. I saw things
under the canvas as well as upon it.
For instance, as / looked towards one
little white-b birch marked dimple in
the hillside, I could fairly hear the
gurgle of the Cold Spring, as its de-
1icious waters leaped out ffrem the
rocks. Why could almost taste them,
in lima gination, just to the right on a
certain shady slope in the woods,
knew where the earliest arbutus in
two. COUNTIES has been blooming and
where in a rocky crevfee, nature has
planted a wonderful little garden of
hepaticas and sanguinarfa. Way off
in a secluded ravine; L know where