326 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



fellow creatures and kind words will spring to our lips, to bless and 

 comfort all around us. Its liome influence can be equalled by no 

 other charm. 



Our hope rests in the possibilities of the country home, in the pa- 

 triotic spirit of her sons, when in voice of government, a disposition 

 of trust, like the soldier of the present time, they stand patriotic to 

 the homes that reared them and to the valleys that gave free range 

 to childhood. 



In the country home man finds an elevating sense of freedom in 

 the open air. The soul feels unfettered when no walls surround him 

 and no ceiling covers. Devotion seems to rise to the very gates of 

 Heaven. The thought expands as if the world attended and the im- 

 agination wondered forth exulting like an eagle. We are surround- 

 ed with nature's beauties; can inhale the air laden with perfume 

 of blooming roses, and if time permitted, the enjoyment while 

 dreamily resting in a hammock under a shade tree, where the bees 

 hum, the butterfly in gaudy attire flits to and fro, sipping the nectar 

 of the sweetest flowers, with the birds busy building nests about us 

 and singing songs of love and cheer. 



Our city cousins, with no care or labor to dull the imagination, 

 like to ramble in the cool and shady woods, beside refreshing foun- 

 tains, murmering brooks; they can a])preciate and enjoy themselves 

 in full measure in our country homes. 



The advantages of country life are so great and apply with so 

 much force to all the members of the home, that it would make this 

 paper too long to treat of them fully. These country home influ- 

 ences have for years filled the cities with new blood, pure from the 

 country families, and has filled the places of trust and honor in the 

 State and Nation with men whose boyhood days were spent on the 

 farm. There are many who wax eloquent in the great duties of life, 

 liut let us try to be kind and courteous that we may strew life's paths 

 with a few of Heaven's scented flowers. 



TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. 



BY LAWRENCE RUBLE, McVeutown, Pa. 



To be in possession of a thing, and to hold it after it is in one's 

 possession, is the question we wish to consider. You always see the 

 farmer who succeeds busy with liis brain as well as fin?;ers. 

 How many of the farmers try to give their boys and girls something 

 to start on, as they say, it is given to them, therefore, they think it 

 came easy, and alas, it goes too easy. 



