city job. It is to be treated with respect and for us the answer lies
in locating just beyond those indefinite boundaries that limit the
urban zone. With the larger cities, this may be as much as fifty miles
from the business center; with smaller ones the gap can be bridged
speedily by automobile.

Going to live in the country, viewed dispassionately as an
accountant's balance sheet, has attributes that can be recorded in
black ink as well as those that require a robust crimson. If you
really want a place where you need not be constantly rubbing elbows
with the rest of the world; where you can cultivate something more
ambitious than window boxes or an eight by ten pocket-handkerchief
garden; where subways and street clatter can be forgotten; your black
column will be far longer than the one in red. But if nothing feels so
good to your foot as smooth unyielding pavements; if the multicolored
electric sign of a moving picture palace is more entrancing than a
vivid sunset; you are at heart a city bird, intended by temperament to
nest behind walls of brick and steel. There is nothing you can do
about it either. In the country the nights are so black; the birds at
dawn too noisy; and Nature when she storms and scolds, is a fish-wife.
Possibly you can learn to endure it all but will the game be worth the
candle? Without true fondness for outdoors and an inner urge for a
measure of seclusion, life in the country is drear. Don't attempt it.

But for those who care for the cool damp of evening dew; the first
robin of spring hopping pertly across the grass; or a quiet winter
evening with a good book or a radio program of their own choosing
rather than that of the people living across the hall; country life is
worth every cent of its costs and these bear lightly.