THE STORY OF A “BACK TO THE LAND” MOVEMENT THAT WAS STARTED BY A MOTOR CAR 
CHAPTER III; IN THE COUNTRY. THE MOTOR WORKS, KEEPS THE MAIDS AND DRIVES AWAY LONELINESS 
Editor’s Note: The man whose business tics him to the city may feel the call of woods and Helds, but the unpleasant prospects of isolation, lack of transit facilities, 
provincialism, etc., have deterred him from making a change. The automobile has solved these difficulties for many and has made a home in the rural country possible even 
for city business men. This is the account of an emigration to a rural district make possible by a motor. The automobile was considered part of the plant, and yet even when 
its original cost was included in the price of the home, they found that it enabled them to buy quite extensive lands for the price of a place in a high-class suburban develop¬ 
ment. How a motor served in a variety of practical purposes, brought friends, made the family independent of distance and time-table, is taken from the experiences of a mait 
who has proved h's experiment. 
EY C. II. CLAUDY 
I F his family was surprised by the sudden 
announcement, his friends were aghast. 
“What!” they exclaimed, “Spence buying 
an automobile ? My, my. the inconsistency of 
man! The auto hater turned victim! The 
democrat joining the ranks of the plutocrats! 
The man who said that all motor cars were 
driven by lunatics now qualifying for the in¬ 
sane asylum!” 
But Spence had made up his mind. 
“It’s this way,” he explained to his wife. 
“I hate a car just as much as I ever did. But 
Swift, the chap that showed me this place I’ve 
been looking at, said something that struck 
me hard. If I use a telephone and electric 
lights and a modern plumbing plant, and think 
I couldn’t be comfortable without them, why 
should I refuse the chance to live in the kind 
of house, on the amount of grounds I want, 
simply because I have to use a car to get to 
and from that house and grounds to the sta¬ 
tion in a reasonable time?” 
Mrs. Spence, being a wise woman, did not 
remind her husband any more than was neces¬ 
sary, of the many times he had inveighed 
against the ma¬ 
chines his neigh¬ 
bors used. If 
secretly she rather 
enjoyed the pros¬ 
pect of riding 
and looking at 
others walking, 
she was clever 
enough not to 
say anything 
about it. 
Spence was for¬ 
tunate, and man¬ 
aged to sell his 
Willisport prop¬ 
erty for $19,500, 
accepting the loss 
of $500 as grace¬ 
fully as could be 
to make a quick 
sale. He bought 
in the Castleton 
house and grounds for $16,000, which left him 
$3,500 of his original investment in a house. 
And having made up his mind to the step, he 
wasted no time, but put $1,100 into a small 
touring car at once. On Mr. Swift’s earnest 
advice, they purchased one with a detachable 
tonneau. 
"You don't know it, yet,” the young man 
said, smiling, “but I can read the signs! You 
are going to get mighty interested in that five 
acres you have, as a farming proposition. Hav¬ 
ing a detachable tonneau enables you to con¬ 
vert your car into a farm wagon! You’ll haul 
things in it, and if you don’t get it fixed that 
way now, you will later, when it will cost you 
more money. I got this tip from Mr. Elkins, 
who owned this place before you bought it.” 
“I guess you are right—I sort of feel the 
itch of that garden right now,” agreed Spence. 
“But I have some doubts of my having much 
time to give to real farming. All I’ll do is a 
little gardening, I guess!” 
Nevertheless, the detachable tonneau was 
arranged, and an extremely valuable sugges¬ 
tion it finally proved to be. 
For a month or 
more there was 
not a sign of pro¬ 
test from any 
member of the 
family. The new¬ 
ness of every¬ 
thing, the pleas¬ 
ure of having 
plenty of space, 
the voyages of 
discovery upon 
which they went 
about their prop¬ 
erty, kept Mrs. 
Spence and the 
.children, two 
maids and a man 
of all work, hap¬ 
pily occupied. 
But after the 
settling down pe¬ 
riod was over, 
Dorothy became a grub and wrought 
mightily in her garden 
Spence’s early garden ambitions were stimulated as he drove about his larger country place and 
discovered return in garden produce that excelled any he could buy in the stores 
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