Norwich bulletin., 1920-01-02
ONE WAY TO CURE A CROUCH l!

CWritten Specially For The Bulletin)
 There are some things-eight or ten or a dozen-about life on farm in the country which I don't like.
 Especially in the winter.
 F"instance. I don't like getting out of bed in a co-o-ld room long before sun-up, dressing myself in 1e the sweaters and overcoats and mufflers I can lay my hands on, a la EsqiInaux, and Eading out through snow drifts to the barn to feed a1bupch of cows and clean out their stables and milk 'em.-
 Nor do enjoy lugging in from four to six huge armfulls of wood and at time to set two or three stoves roar ing as they must roar if they are to keep the inside of a far from wind proof old farmhouse comfortably warm.
 Nor do I really banker after hitching up, either in a driving rain, or drifting snow, or just plain zero morning., and driving two or three miles over rough roads to get an ounce of nutmeg or a spool of No. 50 white. cotton.
 Nor is it a wholly desirable task to Ballow up the steep mountain side through cIogging snow to cut and get down the fifteen or twenty cords of ireTood annually consumed.
 At times, too, there is something de- pressing to even the lifelong farmer in 2 the sense of isolation which comes over him of winter day, when he is shut in from all but telephone commit nication and knows that his neigh bors are, likewise.
 And so on. and so on.
 The city dweller can't begin to
 IL ness of the criticisms l can make on country life.
 Why, then. if this be true, do I live in the country and endure all these discomfortsg Flippantly asked, Oh, re of short sight and shallow brain pansl Obeying Solomon's wiser sec ond thought, (Prov. 26:5), let me an- swer:
 Because, though there are a dozen things about farm life which are dis agreeable, there are two dozen about city life which are either quite as bad pr a durn' sight worse!
 That's whyI
 We've often laughed together, yeiu and l, over the strange whin-wharT of what is called human nature" OIe sof it's most notorious characteristics is that of always being dissatisfied with -Tt-e-L 4t AleS- Illt DdDt DeSi0S BE TedCH- ing out after the moon; the boys and girls signalize their approach to adol- essence by wanting the earth-with 2 ring round it; the farmer when he's grown uD wants to be banker, and the tired business man." (Oh, ratsi), wants to be a Country gentleman. and the shop =worllcr aches to get a little place where he can keep chick ems, and the chicken breeder wish es1 he'd gone into rai1roading, and everybody, man, woman, child and Indian not taxed, wishes he was some bcdy else and lived somewhere else. {
 That's human nature as she is .i1a- tured.
 And it's all wrong; all wrong: from beginning to end It is unreaso sonabIe, to begin with. It is silly. It is unwor- thy of intelligent beings. It is call culated to keep its possessor more or less unhappy all his1 life and to make everybody about /him uncomforta- ble all their lives.
 There is an old adage advising trav- sllers not to cross bridge till they some to it. Uncle Ike used to say that he never worried about tornor- row He'd lived through seventy years Of three hundred and sfvty-ffve days each every day of which hs q been q tomorrow before it became a today. And he'd generally found that tomorrew wasn't half so bad when It came, as 1t looked to be when it was still twenty-four hours of, but on it's way.
 At the best, whether in Labrador or In Sicily, in California Or in New England, or Fifth Avenue or under Hardscrabble Hill, life isn't always onr often bubbling ecstacy It's generally more or less of what Mir Mantalini calls "dem'd horrid grind"
 If intelligence were universal: if reason really rules; if common sense" were indeed common, we should all of uss instead of whimpering and snivelling over our fardships. spend our lives hugging and magnifying our blessings Instead of crying over our losses, we should chirrup and carol over our gains. Instead of signing for the moon, we should snigger right oset loud because we were on the warner and much more 1iveabIe earth Instead of wanting to be Rockefellers with $4eo. 100000 apiece and the dvs- Depsia we should just cackle daily to the smiling skies over our ability to eat corned beef and cabbage-and get away with 'em. Instead of forever