Missouri Country Life Conference. 189 



under such circumstances. I noticed that after a rain it re- 

 quired more than normal interest in the church and religion to 

 get them to attend. Then when I realized that the people came 

 two and one-half miles, even four miles, I saw the reason why a 

 great many did not get to church. 



So I turned my attention to the road problem. This was a 

 much larger problem than I thought it was. In the first place, 

 I did not know much about it. I attended every road meeting 

 within reach to hear lectures on good roads, got all the literature 

 I could get, read about good roads, and sought in every way to 

 inform myself upon the road problem, how to make better con- 

 structed roads and how to improve the system. I found by a 

 certain amount of expenditure we could greatly improve our 

 roads, but also found that the money was not in the hands of 

 the board. So it became necessary to find other means. We 

 had a roads meeting, the purpose of which was to get the men of 

 the neighborhood together, and, after talking the matter over, 

 we asked for volunteers for road work. We got sufficient vol- 

 unteers to grade our road from the church two and one-half 

 miles in one direction and four miles in another on the main 

 roads. This made it possible for any one living in the extreme 

 part of the community to get to a well graded road without 

 going through very much bad road. We soon saw the logic and 

 truth of our reasoning, because at once we found that our church 

 took on new life and many more people attended the church 

 services than had previously. 



Team work and road work in the Harmony community. 



