stage when the man says, "I always believed it." And so the good old
citizens are induced to say that these things have always been, or else
they gently pooh-pooh them. However, the truth remains that I introduced
the first heating-furnace into the town; bought the first lawn-mower; was
among the first to use electricity for lights and natural gas for fuel;
and so far, am the only one in town to use natural gas for power.

Until the starting of the Roycroft Shop, there were no industries here,
aside from the regulation country store, grocery, tavern, blacksmith-shop
and sawmill--none of which enterprises attempted to supply more than
local wants.

There was Hamlin's stock-farm, devoted to raising trotting-horses, that
gave employment to some of the boys; but for the girls there was nothing.
They got married at the first chance; some became "hired girls," or, if
they had ambitions, fixed their hearts on the Buffalo Normal School,
raised turkeys, picked berries, and turned every honest penny towards the
desire to get an education so as to become teachers. Comparatively, this
class was small in number. Most of the others simply followed that
undefined desire to get away out of the dull, monotonous, gossiping
village; and so, craving excitement, they went away to the cities, and
the cities swallowed them. A wise man has said that God made the country,
man the city, and the devil the small towns.

The country supplies the city its best and its worst. We hear of the few
who succeed, but of the many who are lost in the maelstrom we know
nothing. Sometimes in country homes it is even forbidden to mention
certain names. "She went to the city," you are told--and there the
history abruptly stops.