CHAPTER XII 

 R. F. D. 



I NEVER write the initials, R. F. D., on the cor- 

 ner of an envelope, or see them written there, with- 

 out a curious thrill, which I fancy must be shared 

 by all country-bred Americans. Railroads, trolleys, 

 motors, movies, magazines, the tremendous growth of 

 our cities, have made us sophisticated, so that a large 

 number of us have but the vaguest idea how the rest 

 of us live, which sounds like a paradox but isn't. My 

 boyhood, for example, was spent in a New England 

 village less than fifteen miles from Boston, yet the 

 North Parish, four miles away, was still only to be 

 reached by a yellow stage coach slung on swaying 

 straps, the partridges came for grain into our stable 

 yard, and the lives of the farmers along the country 

 roads were as well known to me as the cases of stuffed 

 animals in the lobby of the old Boston Museum, where 

 I went once a week to see the play, or the maze of 

 alleys cutting across Cornhill, which I threaded to 

 and from the station. To-day a trolley runs to the 

 North Parish, and what once were back-country roads 

 are now lined with suburban cottages. One farm is a 



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