he young people to get out of the country
and flock to the cities. In this town and vicinity the tide has been
turned from city to country. We have made one country village an
attractive place for growing youth by supplying congenial employment,
opportunity for education and healthful recreation, and an outlook into
the world of art and beauty.

All boys and girls want to make things with their hands, and they want to
make beautiful things, they want to "get along," and I've simply given
them a chance to get along here, instead of seeking their fortunes in
Buffalo, New York or Chicago. They have helped me and I have helped them;
and through this mutual help we have made head, gained ground upon the
whole.

By myself I could have done nothing, and if I have succeeded, it is
simply because I have had the aid and co-operation of cheerful, willing,
loyal and loving helpers. Even now as I am writing this in my cabin in
the woods, four miles from the village, they are down there at the Shop,
quietly, patiently, cheerfully doing my work--which work is also theirs.

No man liveth unto himself alone: our interests are all bound up
together, and there is no such thing as a man going off by himself and
corraling the good.

When I came to this town there was not a house in the place that had a
lavatory with hot and cold water attachments. Those who bathed, swam in
the creek in the Summer or used the family wash tub in the kitchen in
Winter. My good old partner, Ali Baba, has always prided himself on his
personal cleanliness He is arrayed in rags, but underneath, his hide is
clean, and better still, his heart is right. Yet when he first became a
member of my household, he was obliged to take his Saturday-night tub out
in the orchard, from Spring until Autumn came with withered leaves.

He used to make quite an ado in the kitchen, heating the water in the
wash-boiler. Six pails of cistern-water, a gourd of soft soap, and a
gunny-sack for friction were required in the operation. Of course, the
Baba waited until after dark before performing his ablutions. But finally
his plans were more or less disturbed by certain rising youth, who timed
his habits and awaited his disrobing with o'erripe tomatoes. The
bombardment, and the inability to pursue the enemy, turned the genial
current of the Baba's life awry until I put a bathroom in my house, with
a lock on the door.

This bit of history I have mentioned for the dual purpose of sheddi