A* BABBLED OF GREEN FIELDS 159 



trie lines have not penetrated it is possible to gen- 

 erate your own power with internal combustion 

 engines. Electric light, hot and cold running water, 

 "in-door" plumbing, vacuum cleaners, mechanical 

 refrigerators, gas or electric stoves, dish washers, 

 and washing machines will run as well in the 

 country as the city. Mind you! I do not say pro- 

 fessional farming can be made to pay for all such 

 luxuries. I should say it is extremely doubtful that 

 it can. But the luxuries are available for any rural 

 family that is for the most part supported by some 

 sort of urban occupation. 



In the countryside surrounding a city the size 

 of Philadelphia and doubtless elsewhere all the 

 tity services reach to the farmhouse door. Four 

 milk, three bakery, two ice, and two paper routes 

 pass by Tavern House, all ready and anxious to 

 serve us at instant notice. We have the further ad- 

 vantage of services unknown to the city: two 

 butchers regularly use Skippack Pike, cutting and 

 delivering meat from the back of the truck; the 

 itinerant sheep-shearers and feed-millers reappear 

 at stated intervals. The nearest general stores are 

 half a mile in one direction, a mile in the other. 

 All Philadelphia department stores and the mail- 

 order warehouses make door deliveries miles out 

 beyond us. A telephone call will bring a taxicab 

 from the garage or a case of beer from the brew- 

 ery post haste; while the nearest druggist is pre- 



