Norwich bulletin., 1918-03-29

wen 1 t6lI Wltnlu d QOzen rect where is. I
 l learned several useful thinas from ny experiences with this old rock.
 For one thing, l learned that it was cheaper to spend an hour removing the obstruction than to pay $2.50 for repairing a broken buggy spring. To be sure. learned it too late to save that particular spring and that par ticular $2.50. But was at that time using the road nearly every day, en- dangering other springs and inviting other blacksmith's bills.
 For another thing learned that one can't always tell by mere surface in- dtcations whatA under them That l which looks just a pebble or a boulder | may turn out to be the peak of a l subteTranean mountain. l
 For another thing l learned that l even a couple of simple, slow-witted | old farmers can, if they go at it, do a l very creditable job of road clearing 1 and repairing.
 For another thing learned that at least some of our troubles and mis- chances are due to our own stolidity, not to say stupidity, in tolerating them for so long when a little direct work would abolish them for good and all.
 Another thing l re-learned was that there, are a whole lot of very different people in this world. Probably a dozen teams passed while my neighbor and I were working. Some of them
 were strangers who doubtless assumed that we were town workmen engaged in earning OUT daily wages.
 Naturally, they made no comment. Others were fellow townsmen who us. They invariably stopped for little. Their comments were various. One seemed to find the affair wholly amusing and made it subject of considerable chaffing. One said feel ingly that he was mighty glad some body was goin' to get that dunn rock out of the road: he'd mighty near gone out of the wagon, one night,
 when his wheel struck it unexpectedly. 1 One allowed that he didn't believe we had mo legal right to touch the public highway without permission
 and authorization from the selectmen work for the town for nothing. Wont
 nobody ever thank ye,'' he said.
 | Referring to this last remark, the
 neighbor who has helped me said, | after tho hole had been filled up and
 the ST nee restored; 'P'raps there
 won't nu.>ody thank us for this.s but I
 shan't be woke up any more nights hearin' wheels crack and drivers
 swear when strangers slam up against
 the stone in the dark"
 Yet neither that neighbor nor l, though We had both known the stone was tkere for years and had both been bothered by it for years, had had pub | lie spirit, the simple foresight, the
 good citizenship to abolish it.-till I
 broke buggy spring! Then. I was willing to do something. When the
 neighbor saw another man going at it, l he, also. was willing to do something. Now, you'll ask why we two private
 citizens did this? Why did we have to do it? Why didn't the town au- thorities attend to it?
 i Well, for the same reason, suppose, that the town authorities never do everything that everybody in town
 thinks they ought to. What their req
 son is you're as able to surmise as
 anybody. Perhaps if they were not infinitely limited in their powers and could do two diametrically opposite things and be in two widely separated places at one and the same time, per Ihaps that would help. some. If they weren't skimped in the annual appro- priation and didn't feel themselves
 under compulsion uo make -cecords for economy, perhaps that would make Ia change. Perhaps if Jones of the
 Poverty Hollow road didn't snarl and
 yap at them for working the West Meadows road morn his; while Smith of West Meadows was just as grumpy because they put two teams on the Il Crosstown pike and only one on al } West Meadows, perhaps that, also might have some effect.
 Taking things as they are, however and the town officers as we elect them does our mere election of them divorce us from any and all duty as, ourselves | their employers and masters? Shal we spend all our time, thereafter. il criticising and abusing them, and nc part at all in abating evident hui } sances under our own noses? In othe words is it wisest to howl about evil 3 we see,-and let them alone,-or t.
 stop bowling and buck right at them
 shovel and tongs? Using our owl . shovel and our own tongs and littl s of our own time and sweat, too? < This isn't intended as a suggestion that anyone may prance over to hi e neighbours manor and abate what h S thinks is a nuisance there but hi g neighbor does not. We're not thinkin q of private differences and grievance but of public rights and duties If = few minutes work at just tn
 psychological moment will open
 clogged channel in a flooding brol
 say, and stop a threatening road wash
 out, why jump in and do it, withou . waiting to notify some distant an probably busy road commissioner? | ----
 Legally, we may not be bound to pre-