CHAPTER THIRTEEN 



A' Babbled of Green Fields 



WE moved to the country originally because 

 I was able to convince my wife it is the place to 

 bring up children. When I say "country" I mean 

 country not suburb. When we came here Tavern 

 House stood on an unimproved road; when a 

 wagon or a car went by it was an event. The near- 

 est railroad station is two miles away. One reason 

 we were able to buy the place cheap was that the 

 public did not yet fully realize the automobile had 

 freed commuters from enslavement to the common 

 carriers. As recently as 1920 suburban real estate 

 advertisements always carried some such line as 

 "two minutes' walk to the station" instead of 

 "two-car garage." It is none of our business, yet 

 amusing to recall how zealously the railroads co- 

 operated with the automobile to help it take the 

 cream of their business; only in the last seven or 

 eight years has the line on which I do most of my 

 riding permitted commuters to park their cars in 

 station yards along the right of way. Although two 

 of us can drive in much less than three hours from 

 Tavern House to the Canal Street end of Holland 



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