Norwich bulletin., 1912-06-08
A LATE SEASON MAY ROUND UP A
GOOD HARVEST

Dye ever read Robinson Crusee7 Haven't read the book since you were a boy? Well, well, that's tee bad
 That account of Rehinsons experi- ences on his island Is great story, We call it a "bey's book" It am net sure whether 1t Is that exclusively, l am not sure that it was even written for boys, chiefly, To be sure, boys always read it when they get the chance, But that's because boys read what they like-not what happens to be a "best seller" nor what somebody else tells them they ought to like. They are honest in their natural tastes. As we grow older, we are apt to become more artificial-more inclined to get inte the rut that other folks have made.
 I've always sought, in all proper ways, to keep the boy" in me alive, That I have measureably succeeded is shown by the fact that l still read Robinson Crusoe. Though l know the plot from first twist to last unrav- cling, and always remember, in every crisis of the story, just how it's going to turn out" I still read lt with as much interest as the first time. A diff ferent sort of interest, it is true, but none the less expressing.
 If you've actually and forever got over being boy; worse, still, if you're superciliously proud of that dreadful misfortune, then I've got nothing fur ther to say to you
 Except that I'm as sorry for you as would be if you had lost your eyes,
 You will remember that Robinson was a rather slow -witted, thick head ed sort of chap; accustomed to the seventeenth gentry Englishmans way of life, and. at first, utterly impossible of regarding any other sort as possible. For a man of that habit, he certainly did have a pretty tough proposition put up to him. Alone; on an unknown is- land; an island subject to earthquakes and frequented by cannibals; afraid of possible wild beasts; wholly unaccus- toned to taking care of himself, even with civilized appliances ready at hand, and now compelled to make live of it'with only his bare hands at, first to help him-say, it was something of job he had to face!
 He went at it, in his slow, stumbling fashion, however, and we all remember how he finally got his domestic affairs into quite endurable shape. At one time, however, he certainly got very blue. Whereupon he did 8 strikingly sensible thing; He set down in a table opposite each other his miseries and his comforts and cast up a bal snoe between them. Being a fair man, even if a little slow witted, he was honest with himself and his situation in setting down the items. AS a re- suit, when he came to reckon them up, he was rather surprised to find that the good filled out 8 latter column than the evil Whereupon this eminently wise reflection: Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable but that there was something negative or positive to be thankful for in It"
 Sometimes l think 1t would be good idea is the average farmer would take a day off, every year when things were at their blackest, to do little soul searching bookkeeping of this sort. don't ever remember a spring when, in my neck O woods, prospects looked blacker and farmers were bluer than right now.
 It's been drip and drizzle and drench for weeks and weeks. There seems to be no warmth in the air and no growth in the ground. Most land has been too soaked to be tillable. In that which has been worked man seeds