60 City Homes on Country Lanes 



their metropolitan environment. To walk the pave- 

 ment is to think of pressing the turf. To get a glimpse 

 of sunrise, or of the reddening evening sky across the 

 waste of city roofs, is to dream of the place where the 

 whole glorious spectacle is unfurled to them who have 

 eyes to see. 



Yes, the country-minded constitute an innumerable 

 caravan in all the big cities of the land. If, like the 

 people in easy circumstances, they could do as they 

 wish, they would take the cream of the city and the 

 cream of the country, leaving the skim-milk for those 

 who like that sort of thing; or, perhaps, can do no 

 better. They are withheld from the satisfaction of 

 this natural instinct almost entirely by economic con- 

 siderations. They are attached to the city payroll 

 and would not dare to let go. Neither have they the 

 capital nor the genius for organization requisite to 

 attain the better way of life. 



Municipality, State and nation know there is an 

 unsolved "housing problem." They do not know that 

 there is latent in the hearts of men a desire and a 

 spirit that would cover the earth with genuine homes 

 if it could but find inspiring leadership. But this is 

 getting ahead of our story. 



"David Grayson" — as I have hinted in earlier pages 

 — is the voice of the landless multitude pent up in city 

 quarters, converted into something approximating 

 human jam twice each day, as it goes to and from 

 its work on street-cars, yet ever dreaming of the joys 

 of the countryside. No man since Thoreau has done 

 so much to put spiritual vision into the common life 

 in relation to rural experience. He is, however, not a 



