16 
House & Garden 
SMALL TOWN STUFF 
S OME time ago there crept into our vernacular an 
idiom that represented everything rural, gauche 
and petty-minded. It was a vivid epithet of scorn— 
worthy product of American as she is spoke—and 
you used it casually or with disgust. You said that 
such-and-such was “small town stuff.” 
It conjured up an amusing picture, this “small 
town stuff”—yokels chewing hay straws, over-bun¬ 
dled commuters, a one-man police force, fearfully 
God-fearing Sundays, and baby coaches. Jokes on 
small town life kept the comedians supplied with 
their tools of trade and gave cartoonists a reason for 
existence. 
One had to apologize for living in a small town. 
The man who lived in the city had a reason for doing so, but the man 
who lived in the small town always had to have an excuse. He was 
always telling you that the air was better or the nights quieter or that 
it was the only place to bring up children. 
Yes, indeed, before the lordly pride of cities the small town was of 
little account. 
'T^HEN came the war. 
J_ (By the way, have you noticed how that phrase “Then came the 
war” creeps into everything you read or think or do? August, 1914, 
saw the beginning of a new dispensation. It came to us three years 
later—but it came, Heaven be praised!) 
Then came the war. 
We forgot that there was any such thing as the rural, the provincial or 
the gauche. We were too busy getting together and hurrying into the 
scrap to make comparisons. Today, after a year and a half of it, we 
begin to see that the “small town stuff” is the right stuff, and that it is 
making good. For it is in the small towns of America that a big part 
of the war is being won. It is there that the home fires are kept burn¬ 
ing, casualties are being sustained without a whimper, the loop holes 
of extravagance being plugged and the conservation of food carried on 
almost ascetically. 
I N the cities we are accustomed to the ferment of patriotism. As 
someone said of New York, it has gone drunk on the war. But in 
the small town you see the grim determination of people whose shoulders 
are squared to a heavy burden. To them come little or none of the 
refreshing ardor of parades or the enkindling movement of people in 
masses, such as you see in the city. You can’t bump against Pershing 
veterans in its shops. French Foreign 
Legionaires do not saunter down its 
main street. There are no chic, uni¬ 
formed women ambulance drivers or col¬ 
orful Kilties or dashing Bersaglieri. No, 
the small town has to do its bit without 
brass band accompaniment. But it is do¬ 
ing it just the same, with an optimism 
that creates confidence. 
Walk down the side streets of any 
small town and read the mute evidence. 
Here a service flag with its stars; about 
it Liberty bond stickers and a Red Cross 
poster and a card that says the people 
in that house are buying War Savings 
Stamps. These small town folk don’t 
mind if the stickers do mess up the front 
parlor window—their boys have gone, 
and the little home stands back of them 
body and soul. 
Go to the small town church of a Sun¬ 
day night. The preacher prepares a real, 
old-fashioned fire and brimstone Hell for 
the Hun. He doesn’t dawdle with any 
new-fangled, pussy-footed pacifism. He 
calls the rape of Belgium rape, and the 
bombing of hospitals murder, and the 
words on his decalogue are writ too plain 
for him to mistake the punishment that L 
is coming to the men who commit these crimes. 
And the small town girls,—who stroll home with 
them after service? They go home together, where 
two years ago a lad walked laughing by their side. 
This is going to make a difference in the years to 
come, a great difference. 
Watch the faces at the front door of a small town 
house when the postman walks up the drive. Even 
in times of peace a letter was an added pleasure to 
the day. Now there is only one kind of letter they 
want, and when it comes it goes from hand to hand, 
from house to house. The men in the front line 
trenches speak to their reserves back home,—and the 
reserves bake less white flour in the loaf because of 
them, and till the garden more carefully and find new ways to save a 
quarter for a stamp. 
The day will come, of course, when the small town fathers call a 
meeting to prepare a reception for the handful of returning boys. And 
the houses will hang out their bunting and their queer, old, out-of-date 
flags, and there will be a parade and smokes all around and speeches 
that the poor heroes will be obliged to listen to. 
In time, a monument will go up in the cemetery to the memory of 
the boys who didn’t come back, and for a day or so old wounds will 
re-open and widows feel the raw edge of grief again. 
Then life will go on,—and a new generation of men will say that 
they prefer the small town to live in because the air is purer and the 
nights quieter and it’s the only place to bring up children. 
B UT there is more reason than that. And the reason you cannot 
touch with the hand or see with the eye, and you can scarcely put 
it into words. The nearest you can come to it is to compare the small 
town to a mother who watches over her children. 
In the city the individual loses identity in the mob. In the small 
town his identity is preserved. You think of cities in terms of buildings, 
the small town in terms of human beings. One man’s joy is every man’s 
joy in the small town, but in the city you climb up over other men’s 
bodies. The rule of “Live and let live” is carried out pretty consistently 
in the small town; in the city it is a fight to the finish. You share your 
life in the small town; in the city you live it alone. Finally, sacrifices 
are legislated out of the mob in the city; in the small town they are 
given from the heart. 
The going forth of the small town’s sons to war was a going forth of 
individuals. Their support and the maintenance of national ideals there 
is the result of individual effort. It can 
be counted. It can be set down in figures 
that the human mind grasps. 
THE OLD MAN in HIS GARDEN 
DURING an ILLNESS 
Rendered into English verse from the literal translation by Arthur 
Whaley of the poem by Po-Chiii, who flourished in China, the great¬ 
est of that empire’s poets, A.D. 772-846. 
Sick, sick at heart, with body stricken by long 
disease, 
I feel the processional days and nights go by . . . 
The shadows lengthen behind the cedar trees, 
Upon pale flowers autumnal dew sinks heavily, 
From the secret eggs-—but far, far too soon !— 
The fly-catcher’s young have hatched,—where 
flit they now? 
Already outgrown his hidden drugged cocoon 
The cicada trills, trills, trills in the dragging 
bough. 
The Seasons from Nature’s course cannot depart, 
All things must on, nor can for one moment hold, 
Only the aged sick man’s innermost heart 
Deep down aches, aches, aches as ever of old. 
—Robert Nichols. 
I 
T is this direct contact with realities 
that makes life in the small town so 
full of compensation. “The gift is to the 
giver, and comes back mos" to him.” 
And because it has given so nobly, it 
will receive nobly. It will be a better 
town to live in because of the men and 
boys it sent gladly to the cause. Its ways 
will be pleasant, because of the women 
who sacrifice without stint. Its nights 
will be sweeter and more full of peace be¬ 
cause of nights that knew no peace nor 
consolation. A new light shall shine in 
the face of its people because of the dark¬ 
ness that lies on them now. 
Life—even the life of a town—is mea¬ 
sured according to its capacity for sacri¬ 
fice. But, in return, for every void 
eventually comes abundant fullness. 
These are intangible things; you can¬ 
not measure them by the rule of thumb, 
but they are exactly what makes life 
more satisfying in one place than in an¬ 
other. They are the ingredients of the 
real “small town stuff.” 
