the current year. Usually the decision to pioneer backward is reached
so gradually that those who take the step can hardly tell in
retrospect just when the die was cast. A vacation or summer in the
country may have put it in mind. Then a period of vague indecision
follows when city and country appear about equally attractive.
Suddenly some chance happening turns the scale.

A week-end invitation for cider making in the Hoosatonic Valley in
early November would seem harmless enough, but from it dated our own
determination to cease to be city dwellers. It must be admitted that
the stage-setting was perfect. A twenty-mile ride on the evening of
our arrival through the sharp clear air with a full harvest moon
hanging high in the heavens, while along the way lights twinkled
hospitably from the farmhouses that dotted the countryside. A bright
crisp morning and a breakfast of sausages, griddle cakes and syrup.
This would have been viewed with lack-luster eye in our overheated
city apartment but was somehow just right in this fireplace heated
country room with a tang of chill in the far corners.

Later we were to find that plenty of November nights could be raw and
stormy; that fireplaces could sulk and give out such grudging heat as
to make the room wholly chill. But none of this appeared on that
memorable week-end. It waxed warm enough at midday for all of the
outdoor pleasures that the country affords. We were in congenial
company and evening found us with a sense of peace and well-being that
more than balanced the loss of a theatre or dinner party in town. We
were guilty of the usual platitudes about "God's country and the
normal way to live" and knew they were that but didn't care.

However, there was no rushing around to get a place right across the