1270 
THE NKW-YOWKER 
October 23, 1915, 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
“Com miters.” —A “lending citizen” 
from Alaska came to New York recently 
looking about for man-made wonders. 
This man was born and raised in the 
great northern territory, and natural 
“wonders” were common to him. After 
looking about he concluded that the most 
remarkable wonder he could find was the 
way New York “commuters” live and 
work. lie found a vast army of people 
who travel 50 miles more or less every 
day to their work—living out in some 
village in New Jersey or rural New 
York, and making the trip back and forth 
each day. That struck our Alaskan 
visitor as more remarkable than the great 
silent, icy wastes, or the long, lonely 
trails of his own country. In that land 
a man must keep close to his job, and 
this thing of travelling some 15,000 miles 
a year just to get at work and get home 
again was a new' one! 
A Lively Life. —To many farmers 
this life of travel will seem strange 
enough. Take the man who has only to 
walk out to the barn and at once enter 
the very heart of his business; this idea 
of long journeys at each end of the day 
will seem like a great waste. Yet these 
commuters are creatures of necessity, 
trained to their life, and forming a nec¬ 
essary part of a great business system. 
They are obliged to keep in training and 
stick to regular habits in order to keep 
going. Take this daily record of one 
man T know-—now close to <>0 years old. 
lie is up a little before six o’clock. A 
cold water bath and a rub-down is (he 
proper start for the day. In Summer 
there is time for a little work in the gar¬ 
den. For breakfast a dish of some cereal, 
apple sauce, a piece of toast, perhaps an 
egg and coffee. The station is nearly 
two miles away, and this man walks 
whenever it does not rain or snow. For 
some years he rode this distance, but he 
found himself getting fat, and too much 
inclined to lean against a post or the 
side of a house—so he walks. This time 
is not lost, for the journey along that, 
country road is just the time for plan¬ 
ning out the day’s work. What the com¬ 
muter loses in travel he must make up in 
mental organization. There is a railroad 
trip of 27 miles to work. This time is 
not lost, for it is spent reading the daily 
paper or some strong book. No one cares 
to view the landscape after passing 
through it daily for 25 years or more. 
Many a commuter has had time on these 
daily journeys to read the whole of Dr. 
Eliot’s five-foot library! This man gets 
at his work about nine o’clock. A farmer 
would laugh at the idea of starting 
actual work, at that hour, but in the 
next eight hours that commuter will be 
obliged to concentrate all he has right 
into his job. Rents are high in New 
York, and time is gold. The city has 
somehow adapted itself to the commuter 
habit. Thus business hours are few, but 
they are crowded full. This man we are 
speaking of works like a steam engine 
until noon, and then eats perhaps a bowl 
of soup and bread and butter, or a plate 
of rice and an apple—then back at if 
again until five, after which there is the 
27-mile trip on the railroad and the two- 
mile ride home. He must have eight 
hours’ sleep in order to keep the engine 
oiled. He says he has tried eating beef 
and cabbage and other strong food, at 
noon, but such fuel is too strong. 
Why They Do It !—It is a long, 
steady grind—far more monotonous than 
a farmer’s life, with greater cause for 
worrying about the job. Take our train 
at night during the dark months, go 
through it and watch the people of mid¬ 
dle age. Some of them have been at this 
thing 20 years or more—riding all told 
nearly half a million miles. They have 
left a great slice of their life and nerve 
force in the city, worn off by the grind 
against the great machinery of business. 
Now they are going home for the night’s 
rest which is to fit them for another day. 
Some of them look white and tired. They 
have troubles like all the rest of us. In 
the rush of the day’s work the.se troubles 
were driven out of mind. Now in this 
dim-lighted car, rushing on through the 
black night, the mind, tired and spent in 
a weary body, is like a microscope for 
magnifying trouble and apprehension. I 
can well understand how our friend from 
Alaska wondered at such a life. Yet 
these commuters are as "game” a class 
of people as ever marched up against 
trouble. They are business soldiers, men 
and women, trained to live carefully and 
think quickly. Take 1,000 farmers and 
put them into a crowd together and they 
would hardly know’ what to do. A like 
number of these commuters would in¬ 
stantly organize like an army and march 
off anywhere. Many a farmer would run 
his farm with greater success if he coni 1 
have this enforced training for a few' 
years. 
Whebe They Live. —Many of thorn 
live in the little tow’ns and villages scat¬ 
tered along the railroad. When I first 
began to travel on our road there were 
only little collections of houses with 
farms around them. Now the hamlets 
have grown to large towns, and the 
farms have been cut up into building lots. 
The commuters have given uncounted 
value to these old farms. When the 
Alaska man figured on it he found that 
the commuters had made this land more 
valuable than the gold-bearing earth off 
in his territory. Rents are cheap in 
these towuis and there may be a littie 
garden and place to turn around near the 
house. That is far better for the wife 
and children than the brick and stone of 
the city. Most of these commuters left 
the city because of high rents, and be¬ 
cause they did not want their children to 
grow up entirely ignorant of grass and 
trees and garden and farm life. The pop¬ 
ulation of Manhattan Island fell off 
during the past five years, though the 
outside districts of greater New York 
gained. This is largely due to the people 
W’ho have turned commuters, and there 
will be many more of them. Then there 
are many back-to-the-landers who went 
into the country and bought small farms. 
They could not make these farms pay, 
but they have gone back to the old job, 
hanging to the land as an investment in 
the belief that it will finally rise in value 
and pay them for wuiting. 
Human Life. —Go through the train 
with me and I will give you material for 
a great American story—greater than 
anything Dickens ever w’rote. Here is a 
woman who, some years ago, went out 
with her husband and bought an out¬ 
lying farm. It seemed easy to pay for 
the farm and lay up money, so both she 
and her husband gave up their city jobs 
and went to farming. The man had been 
a bookkeeper and he had the habit of 
figuring. His accounts clearly showed 
that the farm did not pay, and they were 
surely drifting to financial ruin. The 
man could not get his old job back, but 
the woman could get hers, so she goes 
and comes from the city while the man 
stays at home, keeps the children 
straight, develops the farm, and with a 
tireless cooker which he calls a “side 
wife,” does most of the housekeeping. 
The woman is the earner. Her income 
has kept them going until now the man 
has the little farm going profitably and 
the wife can stay at home if she wants 
to. Do you wonder that this man says 
he keeps his wife “in cotton wool?” Will 
she really want to give up work when 
the time comes, and thus lose her present 
family job? Here is a man and his wife 
who ride in and out every day together. 
They came out and bought a little place, 
hut were wise enough to realize that they 
could not make it pay for itself, so they 
have a housekeeper who keeps the place 
going for them, while they keep up their 
work as commuters. Some day they 
will have the place w'ell organized and 
have needed capital to work it properly. 
They are wise, and yet sometimes when 
some one with a great troop of children 
flocks aboard the train, or a great bun -h 
of kids come dancing up to meet a com¬ 
muter these home builders must be 
thoughtful. See that old man with white 
hair in the corner? lie lives far up the 
road. The w’ave of “improvement” has 
not struck his country very hard yet. 
He went out years ago and bought a 
farm far back in a rough country. He 
could not pay for much of it, but the 
agent told him it would double in value 
within five years It did not double, but 
the mortgage kept just as hungry. They 
keep Summer boarders as best they can, 
though the wife is old and it comes hard¬ 
er each year. That big basket is a sort 
of arm delivery wagon. At intervals the 
old man goes to the city with that big 
basket filled with eggs, a few chickens or 
a few other choice things. He can sell 
them to good advantage among his city 
folks. Then he brings back a small out¬ 
fit of groceries or a few light articles 
which he has bought for the neighbors. It 
is hard work, and who can wonder that 
he sits in his dark corner with head bent 
low, going hack to the childless home— 
the grey ghost of the happy vision which 
filled his mind when, years ago he went 
back to the land ! We have just stopped 
at a little station where a plain working 
man got off. Out of the shades of the 
station two little children ran to meet 
him and danced away, each holding a 
hand. The old man saw it all through 
the window. We do not wonder that his 
shoulders shrug up a little! The young 
couple two seats in front of him cannot 
see the shadowy forms of trouble or care 
or regret in that dim-lighted car. They 
have something to do beside gazing out 
through the window into the night. The 
world is bright and fair to them, for their 
nest is building, and while others ride 
home weary from the day’s work the 
world before them seems bright and fair, 
for love, untouched by care or suffering, 
lights the way. 
A Great Like. —So we have it all on 
our train, from grief to joy. No wonder 
our friend from Alaska was surprised. 
Sometimes a farmer back on the hillside 
amid the lonely fields thinks enviously of 
the town worker and thinks he has a soft 
job. He should try commuting n while, 
and see the seasons and the years go by 
along their endless track. He who leaves 
home before daylight and comes home 
after dark, sees little of his family ex¬ 
cept on Sundays. He must live some¬ 
thing like a n an apart, and go through 
life like a machine wound up at night to 
run down through the day. The com¬ 
muter is a valuable citizen. Rut for him 
cities could not expand and grow. ilo 
distributes knowledge and sentiment.--- 
carrying the bustle of the city into the 
country, and also something of the calm 
of nature into the town. He lives a 
great life—the commuter does—and on 
the whole he lives it well. n. w. c. 
Permission to Get Water. 
There is a small farm adjoining our 
home that has never had a well, and the 
residents have had permission of form* 
er owner of our farm to get water here. 
Ry doing this have they gained a lawful 
right to the well, so that a new owner 
can get water here without our permis¬ 
sion? c. w. c. 
Connecticut. 
If the people who have been getting 
the water have recognized the fact that 
they had no rights except under the permis¬ 
sion, the new owner has no right to come 
on your land except by your permission, 
and you may stop him at your pleasure. 
On the other hand, if they claimed to 
have had the right without the permis¬ 
sion, and have maintained this position 
for more than 20 years, the newcomers 
can still continue to get the water with¬ 
out permission. It is well to have these 
permissions in writing, so that the claim 
of right by adverse use for 20 years can¬ 
not arise. 
fTVER this threshold three sons went 
forth to the Civil War. Descendants 
of the one who came back still live in the 
old homestead 
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Materials for a paint tost, also booklet of 
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