R. F. D. 199 



It was only a year or two ago that I encountered a 

 Wanamaker on wheels, in a sleepy little hamlet in 

 Rhode Island. But it has been many years since I have 

 seen the genuine tin peddler and ragman of my boy- 

 hood. Doubtless the rural mail carrier has taken this 

 job away from all such itinerant venders, and a pictur- 

 esque feature of rural life has almost vanished. But the 

 rural carrier himself still journeys, day in and day out, 

 along thousands of pleasant country roads, through rain 

 and shine, mud and drift, an unsung hero of faithfulness, 

 a link between our modern interdependent industrial 

 society and the simpler life of the pioneer, a reminder for 

 all of us, when we write R. F. D. on a letter, that rural 

 America still exists, and hundreds of thousands of our 

 countrymen are still rural Americans, not "soft," as re- 

 cent alarmists would have us believe, but hardy from 

 their age-long battle with soil and tree and winter storm. 

 The talk of "softness " emanates from city dwellers. If 

 we were really soft as a nation, at any rate, a large part of 

 our postal service would come to an abrupt halt. No 

 man who was soft could make Tom Sherburn's trip, from 

 January to December. 



