d them to
the Four-o'Clock train.

We have boys who have been expelled from school, blind people, deaf
people, old people, jailbirds and mental defectives, and have managed to
set them all at useful work; but the Remittance-Man of Good Family who
smokes cigarettes in bed has proved too much for us--so we have given him
the Four-o'Clock without ruth.

We do not encourage people from a distance who want work to come on--they
are apt to expect too much. They look for Utopia, when work is work, here
as elsewhere. There is just as much need for patience, gentleness,
loyalty and love here as anywhere. Application, desire to do the right
thing, a willingness to help, and a well-curbed tongue are as necessary
in East Aurora as in Tuskegee.

We do our work as well as we can, live one day at a time, and try to be
kind.

* * * * *

The village of East Aurora, Erie County, New York, the
home of The Roycrofters, is eighteen miles southeast of the city of
Buffalo. The place has a population of about three thousand people.

There is no wealth in the town and no poverty. In East Aurora there are
six churches, with pastors' salaries varying from three hundred to one
thousand dollars a year; and we have a most excellent school. The place
is not especially picturesque or attractive, being simply a
representative New York State village. Lake Erie is ten miles distant,
and Cazenovia Creek winds its lazy way along by the village.

The land around East Aurora is poor, and so reduced in purse are the
farmers that no insurance-company will insure farm property in Erie
County under any conditions unless the farmer has some business outside
of agriculture--the experience of the underwriters being that when a man
is poor enough, he is also dishonest; insure a farmer's barn in New York
State, and there is a strong probability that he will soon invest in
kerosene.

However, there is no real destitution, for a farmer can always raise
enough produce to feed his family, and in a wooded country he can get
fuel, even if he has to lift it between the dawn and the day.

Most of the workers in the Roycroft Shop are children of farming folk,
and it is needless to add that they are not college-bred, nor have they
had the advantages of foreign travel. One of our best helpers, Uncle
Billy Bushnell, has never been to Niagara Falls, and does not care to go.
Uncle Billy says if you stay at home and do your work well enough