The Naturalizing of a City Man 
Editor’s Note:—The author of this narrative—begun in the December number—had refused to write the story 
of his experiences in going from business life to a farm. His objection was that the published account taken 
from his closely written diary would contain nothing of the joy and inspiration he felt in getting close to Nature, 
and would be merely a matter-of-fact list of happenings with their message lost. He finally consented to write 
it in his own way, allowing memory and imagination to lend color to those days of struggle which are now cher¬ 
ished recollections. He preferred to hide his identity under the disguise of another person, but the essential 
facts are true and full of practical information. This is the second installment and describes the first activities 
in the city man’s country life. Subsequent issues will give further details of how their problems were met 
and overcome. 
B efore the big fireplace at Pandora Cottage five chairs were 
drawn up to the solid-looking, battle-scarred kitchen table, 
which now occupied a position of honor in the dining-room. 
It should be ex¬ 
plained in passing, I 
suppose—for the sake 
of those ignorant folk 
who have spent all 
their days in town— 
that it was a dining¬ 
room for three short 
periods each day. At 
other times it was put 
to the various uses of 
reception-room, 1 i v - 
ing-room, sitting- 
room and library. It 
had been, from an¬ 
cient times, o V e r - 
worked more than any 
other room in the 
house. This was a 
fact that a modern 
household economist 
might ponder over, 
unless he chanced to 
have been brought up 
out where the wind 
has room to get up 
speed between sta¬ 
tions, and the result 
of poking one’s nose 
into the company front parlor was a shuddery “br-r-r!’’ and a 
hasty retreat to the one room in the house where a civilized tem¬ 
perature was maintained. 
But to return to the kitchen table which, as has been said, was 
a rough-appearing but exceptionally substantial piece of furniture, 
evidently built many, many years before anyone ever thought of 
making the flimsy kind one so often sees nowadays. Around it 
were gathered the Mantell household, including the children and 
the hired man. 
This hired man seemed a special dispensation, as he continually 
evidenced new fields of information, but for some time the cir¬ 
cumstances of his arrival had remained a mystery. Concealment 
from the woman of the household, however, was impossible for 
long, and the secret eventually came out, whereat Mr. Mantell 
was good-naturedly twitted and the man was instantly dubbed 
Raffles for his nocturnal entrance. On the first night spent in 
Pandora Cottage Mr. Mantell had been awakened by a noise in the 
kitchen, and with some trepidation he had taken his revolver and 
gone to investigate. His entrance to the kitchen had revealed a 
man roughly clad and dripping wet whom he at once ordered to 
throw up his hands. But the interloper was in no wise discon¬ 
certed at the show of force, and soon convinced Mr. Mantell that 
he was unaware that the house was occupied and that he had no 
other intentions but to seek shelter. As he put it, he had been 
scjuatting there for a few weeks as “self-appointed janitor’’ while 
he had been doing some work in the vicinity. The man's bearing 
and appearance and his rather naive appeal to Mr. Mantell’s judg¬ 
ment of men led him to act hastily and decide to hire him. This 
he had not told the 
family because he did 
not wish them to be 
disturbed by the 
thought of anyone’s 
entering, the place by 
force. 
So Mr. Mantell, as 
he surveyed the 
group, smiled quietly 
to himself. Here was 
the strangest direc¬ 
tors’ meeting he had 
ever sat in. But it was 
just that: they had 
met to discuss the 
problems which con¬ 
fronted their new en¬ 
terprise, and these 
problems were many 
and diversified. 
It was New Year's 
Day. The morning 
following Christmas 
Mr. Mantell and his 
wife and their hired 
man, acquired under 
such peculiar circum¬ 
stances, had had a 
long and serious talk. The result of it was that Mr. Mantell had 
decided to cut loose from the business world, jump clear of the 
overcrowded decks of the city steamboat, and sink or swim in the 
billows of his newly-discovered farm—which is a bad metaphor, 
but not so mixed as it seems. 
With a naturally vigorous mind sharpened by years of business 
experience, Mr. Mantell’s action never lagged, far behind de¬ 
cision. He took the afternoon train to the city, and in three days 
had disposed of his business to the combination of competitors 
who had driven him to the wall, sold his property and returned 
to the country with the few hundred dollars he had left after 
cleaning things up. 
The opinion of his enemies was that he had lost his grit. His 
friends considered him all kinds of a fool, for several good posi¬ 
tions were open to him. Neither, however, were correct. Mr. 
Mantell had not lost his grit: he was of the sort to whom that 
quality is not a matter of conscious effort but temperamentally in¬ 
evitable. He realized that the conditions of business in the line 
in which he had been engaged made it impossible for him to fight 
the combination, and he preferred to get into something else 
rather than accept a subordinate position. He had also gone far 
enough to realize that every step up in the world in which he had 
lived meant a corresponding “higher,” and more expensive stand¬ 
ard of living, with the net result in comfort, happiness and true 
enjoyment about the same. Naturally, he preferred the country. 
Every branch was capped with its burden of white; and the pines and hemlocks were 
tents of wonder with the suggestion of strange retreats beneath their low bent branches 
(44) 
