1905.] THE COUNTRY BOY. 2/ 



even boys at that time. But those who were children, when the 

 trumpets were sounded, can remember when our young men 

 and youth marched away and so few of whom came back, and 

 some of you can remember the women going up and down our 

 streets with tense set faces, waiting for the tidings of loved 

 ones, which too often, in sad form, came too quickly. That is 

 what the war was to us. When it was over and our young 

 men, those who served, came back, there was a change in the 

 whole spirit of our civilization and of our life. The spirit of 

 adventure began to awake. The spirit of travel came on. A 

 desire to break away from the narrow confines of our New 

 England farms came over our young men. Knowledge of vast 

 prairies of the west, and remembrances of the riches of the 

 gold fields of California, discovered shortly before the war, 

 and an understanding of the greatness of our country, which 

 had been increased during their absence, was borne in upon 

 them, and gave rise to a spirit of restlessness and discontent 

 with the life that they had been living. All of these things af- 

 fected the youth of our country at that time, and it has always 

 seemed to me that that was the beginning of the deserting of 

 New England farms. It was that which started that series of 

 events which has resulted in that long list of unoccupied farm- 

 houses that so many of us know where to find in the old districts 

 which once were the homes of sturdy farmers a generation ago. 

 And again, also, the enormous development of agricultural ma- 

 chinery has made farm life a very different thing. The trolley 

 car later came, followed by the lawn mower, so that the villages 

 have changed, and though the differences of theological opinion, 

 to which I alluded, have disappeared, yet there has not been left 

 any intensity of conviction about anything that would make 

 the strong, sturdy characters that we had a generation ago. 

 Those strong, sturdy characters are coming again, and will be 

 once more around us and be found among these rock-bound 

 hills of New England. I feel confident of that. 



One thing more, it seems to me, must come back, if New 

 England country life is to be what it was before, and that is, a 

 sincere respect for, and a sincere, earnest desire to engage in 

 real hard work. Now, gentlemen, you and I can remember 

 that to do a job of work well, and to do it faster and better than 

 anybody else, was, in our time, a thing to be boasted of. I 

 recall very well how the farmers of the hamlet where I lived 



