God's Green Country

ran wild through his pastures, setting it to work to cut the wood, and grind the grain and to run every h

e're prowlin' around the barn with a lantern till nine o'clock most nights. We get a man for a month or two sometimes, but the wife isn't strong and it makes more work for her. Besides, as wages go now it doesn't pay. I know Jim gets discouraged sometimes. He has a fair schooling and the wages he could get in town

every other working man has hung up his overalls, he gets sick of them. I never saw a boy sick of tinkerin' around a gasoline engine or a motor, though. If Jim goes his mother and

the junior farmers' course in the winter came into

he water-powe

iasm. Besides, the boy had just commenced farming on a place of his own, and the agricultural adviser knew that young blood moves more qu

this. I ain't just sure what's the best way. I

lture in the community, but this was something new. Under his quizzical grin the boy reddened painfully. He had neve

ympathetic, "but I don't know much about it myself. It

'll learn," he admitted dryly. "Leastways you don't strike the ne

often met his client jogging quietly along in a rubber-tired buggy, his feet stretched out comfortably on the dashboard and his interest evidently very

hat has the water-power

oftener this summer you'd have known I wa

in the social life of the neighborhood, and again Billy felt the nearness of a kindred interest. At the sam

eave the office the 'phone would ring and the familiar flute-like voice would pipe, "I was afraid you might have gone. I meant to call all afternoon and had almost forgotten."

s the night when his Junior Farmers held their me

chre. Some friends from town have just dropped in. They're very informal, and I kno

Perhaps I could leave the meetin

unmistak

uldn't think of having you do such a thing. It doesn

r to come with him. It was a

ike, but it would be casting your pearls before a very ungrateful little pig. I wouldn't enjoy it a bit. And I think, too, if you'll take an

sor

gh without running to meetings at night? It doesn't leave you any time for social interests at all. I'm sure you wouldn't have any trouble

theatres and motoring excursions than was good for his Junior Farmers' Society. He felt that he deserved the unconscious reproof, "If you'd been at our meetings oftener," from

marry the teacher

didn't want to marry any girl to have her help to support the place. I thought I could make things so she wouldn't have to work any harder to take care of a home out here than she would in town. There was no person I could ask about it until you brought that girl out to the farm excursion. I didn't know what she'd think, but I didn't suppose I'd ever see her again, anyway, so I asked her if she thought a fellow had any right to take a girl who didn't know anything about farming out to a place like mine, and if she

sement that she would be rather impressed with the prevailing sentiment. And she had said: "A girl wor

his reverie the bo

know what to do. If there isn't enough water power, I'll get a gasoline engine big

g every year; hired men were expensive, and they wouldn't stay. The water power, once installed, would cost nothing; it would work all da

ng drudgery which was making boys shiver at the thought of farming all their lives. Occasionally a woman coming from the barn with her milk-pails and a fretful little toddler or two tagging along after her would startle him with a crowd of memories which he had been trying hard to forget. Whatever changes might come now, he would always have to remember that until he was old enough to do it himself, nothing had been done to make things easier for his mother. In the evenings when he drove home late and saw families s

g them that all the prizes of progress are no longer to be allowed to go to the man-life on the farm while the woman-life is left to vegetate. The woman on the farm must bear the oncoming hosts of strong men, or th

experiences of his own childhood on the Swamp Farm had left his sympathies quick for any youngster suffering possibly some of the same tribulations. Yet he knew the homes in the neighborhood pretty well, and he knew that child-labor could not be called an evil of the section, except in the backward crevices of the hills, and in the best counties of the province there are "way-back" places where a lot of evils go u

the tradition that children brought up in the country are healthier than children brought up in the city is all a lie. He showed us that while the death rate in the cities has been going down steadily for the last ten years, in the country it maintains a pretty straight line. The beginning of most of it st

t they said it was only a first tooth; it would soon come out itself. She had never gone to a dentist in her life, and her front teeth we

f amusement for the school by his awkwardness; he couldn't walk across the room without bumping into things. They have just by accident discovered that he's nearly blind

n go past. They pick the flowers through the fence and go on unrebuked, and I've seen her stand watching them up the road, especially the little five-year-olds, with tears in her eyes and a look almost rebellious. She won't ever have any

eathing passage, and the only thing left for her to do was to keep her mouth open and catch whatever air she could. Of course, the result was that the upper jaw narrowed and the teeth protruded, taking the character entirely away from the lower part of the face. She kept

s, and then if there's anything wrong we want to have a clinic and get th

that in some way the Department of Agriculture stood back of them in the undertaking. That was as far as his interest had gone. As for helping personally with the procedure, he would rather blunder into a hornets' nest than get mixed up in the detail of a women's organization.

ldren over and see if there were any suffering from the troubles that could be remedied. If they could have a nurse to help with the inspection and to visit the homes in a neighborly w

the Institute were contributing supplies of sheets and towels for the occasion. Mrs. Evison had dropped in at an Institute meeting to express her delighted approval of the plan and to say that her daughter would be pleased to drive their car all day, if necessary, to fetch the child

om the gossip of the regular store roosters. He climbed into the car with his accustomed sullenness-or what was generally considered sullenness. Billy knew it was only a p

ur Junior Farmers' meetings

didn't

r the likes of

Representative declared, w

d, "but there's a difference, and you know it. They're used to

n. He wondered if the school clinic would admit him; or, what would be more difficult,

t with him. At the place where he works, they don't make much difference by him. But the folks at the Home thinks if they once gets us out to what they call the 'green country,' they've sort of landed us in 'eaven. Men send in for 'a boy to d

n life is opening a strange world to him, and he needs a confidant, and he had not forgotten how the "Representative" in his county at home had given him co

rrow and let them fix y

wdly for a minute, th

y trouble, but that's not sayin' what the others 'ud think. I'll think it ov

e of his main ambitions for the district-but these things didn't seem so important to-night. If the clinic to-morrow could remove one boy's handicap and give him the chance for life that Nature meant him to have, it would be worth more

le purring tone that always set his pulses poundi

raid-"

shed surgeon as Dr. Knight. It's really very unusual for him to go out of the city at all, and we thought you wouldn't want him to go to the Village Inn-it's quite impossible, you know, so mot

you're going to help"-that was the th

e car all day," she an

nterested. Of course, she couldn't resist the c

rattled along; then dropping her voice appealingly, "I know I'm an awful nuisance, that I

s at McGill's. I was wondering if we c

speak for him. I'm so glad it was nothing u

mbered the confession, "I know I'm just hindering your work all the time." Now, when she was beginning to be interested, to even try to help, he was losing his

beside him on the pillow. There was an unsteady little gurgle of a laugh, so low and deep and comrady that it made him shiver a little. He had heard the little sob catch at the end of it and he was aware that it meant a good deal. When she looked up and saw him she colored warmly, then came straight to meet him in her frank, friendly way; but he thought she left him very soon to go b

riding. He had never known Marjorie to be so adorable. She was unnecessarily solicitous for the comfort of the children, and she took orders from the doctor with a demure seriousness that was most becom

e nothing so much as a brilliant scarlet tanager, poised for flight. It was unreasonable, he reflected, to expect a girl like that to conform to standard

uniform had lost some of its crispness; her face was flushed; her hair was straying out from under her nu

"Is there anything I can do? I want

e just had another patient come

are you go

his

he homely trick; then a sharp

sed to do th

e when she followed him home from his mother's funeral and

or me once, too. I don't wonder t

e the full wonder of it. What a treasure would be there for some man to explore, and how blind and ungrateful he had been all along. He had never done anything but go to her for he

drive around till you get rid of the ether you've been bre

bad case, and I'm going to

me of his own

who works somewhere around. He came in alone at the last minute, and you cou

y ashamed of himself. It had been hard for the boy

er the doct

I'd had about enough bad tonsils to-day without this last case, and there was no reason under the sun why we should ta

with his usual sincere interest; the doctor with his clever way of unconsciously saying the most complimentary things. It was quite possible that he had said them before, of course, and quite probable that he would say them again and keep right on saying them so long as people with grown-up daughters continued to shower him with their hospitality. Several times she caught Billy watching her with the sober tenderness th

be able to do so much for people, especially for "the little children." "When I see other people doing things like that, I just wonder what I'm living for," she confessed, gravely, as though she had just been

for a nurse?" he su

and she thought it was scarcely kind of

urse, her father wouldn't think of letting her go away from home. She was at college two years ago studying domes

uivalent for her mother's expression. She had always found

would go with her if she ever came to a place where she wouldn't have the consideration they gave her at home, and he found himself wondering just what manner of man this Dr. Knight was, apart from his profession. When he had left t

the Home boy. However, Ruth would take care of him. He could see her shadow moving against the blind now, and he thought

mbled something about the "agricult

man. There's just one thing that's spoiling his work a little. He's very much in love with Miss Evison.

ss. She only ached for her own room at h