4 The Farmstead 



After half a century, I look back to one of 

 the happiest moments of my life, when I pre- 

 sented my mother with a dove -tailed wooden 

 flow^er box, painted bright red. That flower box 

 first taught me how to make wood take the 

 form desired. While the flower box has long 

 since rotted, the board -runner sled smashed, the 

 water wheel broken, and the boat lies rotten in 

 the bottom of the lake, the time spent upon 

 them was not thrown away, for they gave me 

 the inspiration and power to "boss" wood, and 

 this power has served me well in many an 

 emergency. 



As knowledge begins to dominate the hand 

 and train it to change the form and character 

 of things, certain physical laws are discovered. 

 If the sail is made too large or the boat too 

 narrow, a cold bath is the result. If the sled 

 runners are too short and rough, the school- 

 mate arrives at the bottom of the hill first. No 

 schoolmaster was needed, for when one of these 

 natural laws was broken or ignored, the penalty 

 followed quickly and with full force. So, in a 

 thousand ways, the youth is taught respect for 

 the laws which govern matter. All this leads 

 the youth on the farm, if full play and direction 

 are given, to investigate everything in sight, 

 to discover that there are other than physical 

 laws. The higher laws puzzle him greatly, 



