A' BABBLED OF GREEN FIELDS 155 



Tunnel for a total cost including tolls, insurance, 

 and depreciation on the car of a dollar and eighty- 

 five cents apiece; and although the railroads have 

 been able to make the New York-Philadelphia 

 run in much less than two hours any time these 

 last twenty years, it is only in the last three or 

 four that they have scheduled faster trains, and 

 little more than a year since with the greatest re- 

 luctance they reduced their fares. 



For a long time the country remained a strange 

 and fearsome place to my poor wife, who was 

 brought up in the city. I taught her how to use a 

 pistol, and in later years she has confessed she often 

 carried it with her from room to room as she went 

 about her household duties. No doubt to anyone 

 accustomed to neighbors at arm's length there is 

 an eeriness about the country. But it is a sensa- 

 tion that soon wears off. Today her attitude toward 

 the country is accurately expressed by the fact 

 that, returning from one of her brief, infrequent 

 visits to the city, she flung herself down exhausted 

 and exclaimed: 



"I declare the city is a madhouse. I do not know 

 how anyone can stand it." 



As I said in the last chapter, a home-use farm 

 will not work unless everyone works at it. Inev- 

 itably my wife does a lot of what are strictly farm 

 jobs. She takes care of the milk and the dairy uten- 

 sils, which is the thing to do if you want to be sure 



