1905.] THE COUNTRY BOY. 2$ 



cal discussions as anybody ought to be allowed to have. The 

 reason why was that the people really cared. They thought 

 that their life hereafter was somehow dependent upon their 

 conclusions in these great, tremendous questions. If they 

 were mistaken, as, personally, I think they were, for after all 

 the great thing in life is to live correctly, rather than to believe 

 in any certain philosophical belief or principle, nevertheless it 

 was a fine thing for those old fathers and grandfathers of ours 

 that they cared about the great things of life ; that it was a 

 matter of importance to them whether certain philosophical 

 propositions, having to do with the advance of the human soul, 

 were or were not true. It helped them to bear the trials, sor- 

 rows, and prejudices of life. It kept their eyes open and their 

 faces towards the morning. It helped them to see things if 

 not in their reality, to see at least and understand some of the 

 afifairs of every day life, yet deserving of their high energy and 

 calling for the best there was in them. Now, in such an intense 

 civilization as that, in a society made up of people that did 

 care, there grew up the country boy of fifty years ago and more. 

 Those were the days before the advent of the Village Improve- 

 ment Society, when the grass on the village green grew un- 

 vexed by the lawn mower, when it was tumbled and pitched 

 aside by a pair of boys and girls hurrying to and fro from 

 their schools, and perhaps mown after haying was done by 

 some thrifty soul, who, if he could get a few tumbles of hay 

 despite the boys, thought himself well ofif. There is a beauty 

 in that as w'e look back at it, I am sure there is a beauty in it, 

 and a glamour of beautiful reminiscences over it, if we could 

 see it again as it used to exist, see the grass on the green and in 

 the village fields, where we, as boys, used to lie and dream ; in 

 those fields that were open to everybody in the old New Eng- 

 land village, adjoining and surrounding the principal New Eng- 

 land village church. What a flood of tender recollections 

 comes to us when we endeavor to think of those happy days. 

 What a pleasant thing it was, when you and I were little, to lie 

 down in that tall grass and to study with the exquisite eye of 

 youth the red top, so like an oak tree if you got it near enough 

 to your eye. How many air castles have been built by you and 

 me as we have lain there in the grass watching through the 

 stalks for some stray, mysterious message from fairy land, 

 and thinking of great days to come. Ah, those were glorious 



