in--the minute Mary graduates from High School. ... But I know he never
will.

So to Will Radville is as dull as ditchwater to a teamster; to me it's
as fascinating as that same ditchwater to a biologist with a
microscope. I see nothing going on in the world outside of Radville
more important than our daily life. Too long I have lived away from it,
a stranger in strange lands, not to appreciate its relative
significance in the scheme of things. It makes all the difference--the
view-point: Will sees Radville from its homely heart outwards, I stand
on its boundaries, a native but yet, somehow in the local esteem (by
reason of my long residence in the East) an outlander. Thus I get a
perspective upon the place, to Will and his ilk denied.

It seems curious that things should have fallen out thus for the two of
us: that Will Bigelow, all afire with the lust for travel, should never
have mustered up enterprise enough to break his home ties, whilst I
whose dearest desire had always been to live no day of my alloted span
away from Radville, should have been, in a manner which I'm bound
presently to betray, forced out into the world; that he, the rebellious
stay-at-home, cursing the destiny which chained him, should have
prospered and become the man of substance he is, while I, mutinously
venturing, should have returned only to watch my sands run out in
poverty--what's little better.

Not that I would have you think me whining: I have enough, little but
ample for my simple needs, if inadequate for my ambitions or my
neighbours' necessities. My editorial work for the _Radville
Citizen_ is quite remunerative, while my weekly column of local
gossip for the _Westerly Gazette_ brings me in a little, and I've