Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-12-01

UR frontiers, they and the spirit of the
j pioneers cut with the timber so that only
~ feeble sort of second growth courage remains That's
what they say But isn't We have frontiers and have
pioneers sturdy any who crossed the Wilderness Trail
marked the Northwest Passage They pioneers
always have BEEN people of many backgrounds urged by
diversity of dreams. You wouldn't for example, expect
Swiss bartender and Armenian hat salesman to turn
pioneer Yet they did know them both
As of fact Gus here from Switzerland with
the hope of becoming pioneer He thought the frontier
just around the but when he asked people about it
they laughed at him. Gus decided that the stories he'd
read stories: that hed been just romantic mbecie
He got Job bus boy in restaurant worked to being
waiter became time the bartender of the place He laid
aside his dreams of pioneering except for occasional moments
of resentment that he could have been such sap.
Then evening, about five years ago. laxative
toner told Gus about his fur farm Its right in the wilder
ness, he said mot another family within five miles.
Gus stared Out West, this isl" he asked.
The fur farmer shook his head Its in upstate New York.
Gus who had been twenty miles west of New York
City, gaped and asked hundred questions He learned that
farm land in New York State could be bought for less than
he'd ever dreamed. He home in a daze woke his wife
and they talked till morning half believing half doubling but
determined to find out whether the frontier really did exist
All winter long they read and studied, and when spring
they ready. Gus quit his job They bought
secondhand and with the children the dog the
canary carefully selected of Clothes bedding
kitchen equipment and tools
HEY bought hundred that had been farm
but for fifty years had been eposseed by the deer
the rabbits the snakes and other creatures that lived there
long ago. They cleared little patch of ground and built log
cabin the cellar hole where the original house had stood
They put up and Shelters stocked them with pheasant
and quail cleared and planted garden 1t wasn't they
had fight critters every step of the way just the first
settlers did far from comfortable the so because
they used to comfort than the pioneers
dreamed of having City people would have said that Gus and
his family had exchanged fairly high standard of living for
very low standard But Gus and his family thought they had
the best of the bargain Some day they have electric lights
and running water and furnace.
They have them Within five years they bridged
century of progress The game farm paying business
"One thing only regret, Gus told me- I'm sorry
didn't know about this But they told there
frontier left"
Bilzran never dreamed when he stopped to look at
aquarium in pet-shop window that he seeing vision
which would lead him far from home, that he would find
beauty and work and satisfaction the depths of cypress
swamp Bkran energetic young Armenian hat sales
whose whole world Chicago But he had eye for
beauty and somewhere deep him nartcate need for
beauty He also had eye for business and vast curiosity
He went in and talked to the petshop proprietor who