IF YOU'RE GOING
TO LIVE IN
THE COUNTRY

A RIVERSIDE HOME RECONSTRUCTED FROM THE RUINS OF AN OLD MILL
Photo by Samuel H. Gottscho. Robertson Ward, architect

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

WHY LIVE IN THE COUNTRY?

CHAPTER I

Why do city-bred people betake themselves to the country? The surface reasons are as many as why they are Republicans or Democrats, but the basic one is escape from congestion and confusion. For themselves or their children their goal is the open country beyond the suburban fringe. Here the children, like young colts, can be turned out to run and race, kick up their heels and enjoy life, free of warnings to be quiet lest they annoy the elderly couple in the apartment below or the nervous wreck the other side of that suburban privet hedge.

The day and night rattle and bang of the city may go unnoticed for years but eventually it takes its toll. Then comes a great longing to get away from it all. If family income is independent of salary earned by a city job, there is nothing to the problem. Free from a desk in some skyscraper that father must tend from nine to five, such a family can select its country home hours away from the city. Ideal! But few are so fortunate. Most of us consider ourselves lucky to have that city job. It is to be treated with respect and for us the answer lies in locating just beyond those indefinite boundaries that limit the urban zone. With the larger cities, this may be as much as fifty miles from the business center; with smaller ones the gap can be bridged speedily by automobile.

Going to live in the country, viewed dispassionately as an accountant's balance sheet, has attributes that can be recorded in black ink as well as those that require a robust crimson. If you really want a place where you need not be constantly rubbing elbows with the rest of the world; where you can cultivate something more ambitious than window boxes or an eight by ten pocket-handkerchief garden; where subways and street clatter can be forgotten; your black column will be far longer than the one in red. But if nothing feels so good to your foot as smooth unyielding pavements; if the multicolored electric sign of a moving picture palace is more entrancing than a vivid sunset; you are at heart a city bird, intended by temperament to nest behind walls of brick and steel. There is nothing you can do about it either. In the country the nights are so black; the birds at dawn too noisy; and Nature when she storms and scolds, is a fish-wife. Possibly you can learn to endure it all but will the game be worth the candle? Without true fondness for outdoors and an inner urge for a measure of seclusion, life in the country is drear. Don't attempt it.

But for those who care for the cool damp of evening dew; the first robin of spring hopping pertly across the grass; or a quiet winter evening with a good book or a radio program of their own choosing rather than that of the people living across the hall; country life is worth every cent of its costs and these bear lightly.

Along Fifth avenue, New York, not far from the Metropolitan Museum, is a typical town house. A man of means maintains it for social and business reasons. But he does not live there. His intimates know that only a few minutes after the last dinner guest has departed, his chauffeur will drive him some twenty miles to a much simpler abode on a secluded dirt road. Here, he really lives. Whistling tree toads replace the constant whir of buses and taxicabs.

Most of us cannot be so extravagant. We are fortunate to have one home, either in the city or the country. Renting or buying it entails sacrifices, and maintaining it has its unexpected expenses that always come at the wrong time. What do those who live beyond the limits of cities and sophisticated villages gain by hanging their crane with the rabbits and woodchucks?

First, country living is the answer to congestion. Even the most modest country cottage is more spacious than the average city apartment. Life in such a house may be simple but not cramped. There is light and air on all sides. This may seem unimportant but did you ever occupy an apartment where the windows opened on a court or were but a few feet from the brick wall of another warren for humans? If the sun reached your windows an hour or two a day, you were lucky. In a country house there is sunlight somewhere on pleasant days from morning to night. That difference can only be understood by those who have known both ways of living.

In town, light and air cost money; along the rural postal routes it is as much a part of the scheme of things as summer insects or winter snows. And it may have a very definite bearing on the well being of all members of the family. Some suffer more than they realize from lack of sunlight. Frequently it is the children and, with many families, decision to move countryward is on their account. In fact, there be some, where father and mother, if they consulted their own preferences, would stay in a city apartment convenient to theatres and shops, with friends and acquaintances close at hand. But their small children lack robustness. The parents try everything, careful diet, adequate hours of sleep and all the other recommendations of scientific child rearing. Still the little arms and legs continue to be spindling. Tonics and cod liver oil fail to get rid of that pinched look, the concomitant of too little sunlight and too many hours indoors. In desperation such a family betakes itself to the country. The children weather tan. They respond to the more placid life and gradually gain the much sought after hardiness. Nature has been the physician without monthly bills for house or office treatments.

The children are not the only ones who gain. Healthy adults renew their energy and crave activity. Here opportunity lies close at hand. It may be swinging a golf club or going fishing. It may be such unorganized methods of stretching muscles and increasing breathing as pushing a lawn mower, raking leaves or weeding the delphinium border. All these sports and homely out-of-door duties and pleasures are nearby, many of them just the other side of the front door. Those classed as sports may require a country club membership but even this is on a more modest scale.

In fact, all potent are the economies made possible by leaving city or closely built suburb. House and land, either bought or rented, comes cheaper and is more ample. Along with this basic saving there are a number of others that help to leave something from the family income at the end of the year. Clothes last longer in the country and wardrobe requirements are simpler. Similarly, there is a distinct decrease in the money spent for amusements. When the nearest moving picture house is five miles away it is easy to stay at home. Going to the movies is not a matter of just running around the corner and so done automatically once or twice a week. Then there are such things as doctor's bills. While sickness, like taxes, visits every family no matter where it lives, we have found that we actually have less need of medical care living in the sticks than we did in town. Also the charges for competent care by both doctors and dentists are lower.

For the family inclined to delve in the soil, a definite saving can be accomplished by tending a vegetable garden, raising small fruits and berries, and even maintaining a hen roost. Some people (I would I could honestly include myself) have a gift for making things grow and getting crops that are worth the work that has gone into them. Likewise there is such a thing as possessing a knack with that unresponsive and perverse creature, the hen. Possibly good gardening and an egg-producing hen-yard are the result of willingness to take infinite pains but, out of my disappointments and half successes, I am more inclined to hold that it is luck and predestination. So, I have reduced agricultural activities sharply, but I do know families where each fall finds cellar shelves groaning under cans of fruits and vegetables, products of the garden, and foretelling distinct economies in purchases of canned goods or fresh vegetables.

One of the largest single savings that country life makes possible is elimination of private school tuition. Theoretically city public schools are good enough for anybody's children. Actually most good neighborhoods have an undesirable slum just around the corner and the public school is for the children of both. So, many city-dwelling families, not from snobbishness but because they do not want their young hopefuls to acquire slum manners and traits, dig deep into their bank accounts and send their children to private schools.

Seldom is this necessary in the country, especially if the educational system is investigated beforehand. Instead, the children start in a good consolidated graded school, proceed through the local high school, and are prepared for college with all the cost of tuition included in the tax bill that must be paid anyway. The children are none the worse for this less guarded education. They are, in fact, benefited for they have a democratic background that makes later life easier.

Besides these creature comforts and financial gains, there are the intangibles. Chief of these is that indescribable something, country peace. All the family responds to it. It is impossible to maintain the highly-keyed, nervous tension that characterizes city life when the domestic scene is surrounded by open fields or an occasional bit of woodland. The placid calm soothes frayed nerves and works wonders in restoring balance and perspective toward family and business problems. The harassed come to realize the inner truth of "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world."

Along with this, the family transplanted from the city gradually comes to know the genuine joys of much simpler pleasures. Separated from the professional recreations that beckon so engagingly in cities and the larger towns, adults and children alike develop resources within themselves. They learn that they can be just as contented with homely enjoyments as they ever were when they sat passively and were amused by some one who made it his profession. A tramp through the woods in the fall when there is a tang of frost in the air; the satisfaction of a long-planned flower bed in full bloom; a winter evening with a log fire blazing on the living-room hearth; are simple but as genuine as any of the pleasures known to city folk. Better yet, they are not exhausting. "Few people are strong enough to enjoy their pleasures," a friend once wisely observed. In the main, however, those of the country are less taxing and leave one refreshed which, after all, is the true purpose of recreation.

Against these gains of country living the costs must also be reckoned. These, as stated earlier, will hardly be felt if the individual really likes the country in its smiling moods as well as its frowning ones. One which the family recently separated from city ways may find hardest to accept is a demand for self-reliance. If the furnace will not burn, a water pipe springs a leak, a mid-winter blizzard deposits a snowdrift that all but blocks the front door, father or some one else must rise to the situation.

The country home has no janitor. The nearest plumber is two or five miles away. No gang of snow shovelers knocks at the door with offers to attack the mislocated snow at a price, albeit the highest they think the traffic will bear. Pioneer-like, some or all of the family must turn to and cope with such situations. Doing so, whether temporary like closing a pipe valve to stop the cascading water until the plumber arrives, or permanent like mastering the idiosyncrasies of the furnace, has its reward. From oldest to youngest, after a year or so there comes a sense of ability to cope with the unforeseen rather than to stand meekly by waiting for George to do it.

Again, it is not always smiling June with gentle breezes. There are also January, February and March, the months winter really settles to his task and delivers, as he will, snow storms, or spells of abnormally cold weather that make the house hard to heat and may freeze pipes. There are also rainy spells of two or three days' duration that come any time, spring, summer or fall. It is fun to be in the country when the sun shines. There are so many things to do and see out-of-doors. It is totally different when it rains and rains and still keeps on until everything outside is dripping and sodden. Then comes the testing time. Child or grown-up must accept such bad weather and make light of its restrictions, or country living is hard indeed. But did you ever put on boots and oilskins and go for a long walk in the rain just for the pure joy of it? Try it some time. You will see fields and bushes with different eyes and hear that most musical of all country sounds, the rush of tiny brooks in full flood. Even the birds have their rainy day manners and ways.

THE OGDEN HOUSE, FAIRFIELD, CONN. BUILT BEFORE 1705, IT HAS BEEN RESTORED TO PRESERVE THE ORIGINAL DETAILS
Miss Mary Allis

The most ardent country advocate, however, cannot deny that in some respects such a life has certain expenses not entered in the budget of families living in town. First and foremost, if father has his city job there is the monthly commutation book as well as the occasional railroad fares when other members of the family go to the city. There is no argument about it. These are added expenses but they are more than offset by reductions in the fixed charges. Also by selecting where you will live, transportation costs can be controlled.

Expenditures incident to entertaining are another matter. One of the pleasantest things about living out-of-town is the week-end. From Friday night or Saturday noon until Monday morning the city is forgotten. Of course, part of the time, you will want to share these days with friends still cooped in apartments. Week-end guests vary the picture and are worth both the effort and money entertaining them involves. But don't think that will be all. No country-living family is safe from either friends or casual acquaintances in these days of motor cars. They will appear most unexpectedly and assume that you are as delighted to see them as they are to have you as an objective for a Sunday afternoon motor trip.

At first it is flattering to have people come so far just to see you. Then the novelty of it wears a little thin and you begin to realize that frequently Monday morning finds the refrigerator swept bare. In time it will dawn on you that part of the up-keep of a country home revolves around feeding your self-invited guests. It would not be so bad if they would telephone ahead so that you could be prepared, but that is not one of the rules of the game. Instead, it is taken for granted that living in the country, you have a never-failing pantry. The solution lies in preparedness. From early spring until about Thanksgiving time, have in reserve some simple supplies for an acceptable afternoon tea or Sunday night supper.

One household of my acquaintance always has large pitchers of milk, a supply of crackers, two or three kinds of cheese, a platter of sandwiches, home-made cake and a hot drink. As many as wish are welcome to come at the last moment for this standard Sunday night supper. Its simplicity has earned this repast a wide reputation and it is considered a great lark to go there. Incidentally, this truly rural supper is so inexpensive that it matters little how many are on hand Sunday evenings. Also the chore of washing dishes after the last guests have gone is reduced to lowest terms, likewise an item not to be overlooked.

This trend toward country living, now so far flung as to be a characteristic of American life, is not just a fad. It has been a slow steady growth and has behind it a tradition of a century and more. When our larger commercial centers first began to change from villages to compact urban communities, there were those who found even these miniature cities far too congested. It was incomprehensible to them that a family should exist without land enough for such prime requisites as a cow, a hen-yard, and a vegetable garden. No family that really lived and properly enjoyed the pleasures of the table could be without them. Besides, epidemics of yellow fever came with summer as naturally as sleighing with winter.

So for health and good living they began to move far into the country,—that is, three or four miles out of town,—and stage coach routes were established to transport the heads of such families to and from business either the year around or for the summer months. These stages or the private carriages of the more ostentatious were, of course, horse-drawn which limited the distance which could be traveled.

The next step was the railroads. Hardly were they practical means of transportation that could be relied on day in and day out, before commutation tickets were offered for those hardy enough to endure daily trips of a dozen miles or more between home and office. Gradually the peaceful farming villages surrounding cities were transformed into something new to the American scene, the suburban town, but it remained impractical for most people to live farther from the station than a convenient walk. When electric car lines were added, the distance was extended materially and the farm lands just outside these suburban towns took on new value. Near car lines, they could be sold to those not primarily concerned with agriculture. The interurban electric roads also made many so-called abandoned farms in various parts of the country practical for families who wished to live farther from commercial centers either throughout the year or for the summer months, since they provided that great essential, a quick means of getting to shopping towns. Still great sections of back country, too far from railroads and electric car lines, remained strictly rural.

Finally the automobile, made inexpensive enough for families of average income and provided with that great innovation, the self-starter, changed it all. This was not so very long ago. Approximately with the World War came the moderate-priced car that need not be cranked by hand. Driving it was no longer a sporting male occupation too often marred by broken arms and sprained wrists, the painful outcome of hand-cranking when the motor "back-fired." With the self-starter car driving went feminine. Mother, as well as father, could and did drive. It was now practical for automobile owning families to live farther from railroad stations and villages.

Unnoticed at the time, a new sort of pioneering began. City-dwelling people turned hungry eyes toward the cheap country farmhouses located beyond limits of horse and carriage travel. By 1920, this trend was in full swing and greatly expedited by the program of highway improvement and rebuilding that spread across the country.

With a quick and easy means of travel, good roads, telephone and electric service, farmhouses which but a few years before had been as isolated as when Horace Greeley was thundering, "Go West, young man, go West," were isolated no more. Prices rose but not beyond the purchasing power of those who sought escape from city congestion or the restrictions of fifty-foot suburban lots. The gasoline age had done it. It had married rural peace to rapid transportation. If you had to earn your living in the city, it was no longer required that you and your family live in its midst. A tranquil country home was yours if you would reach for it.

SELECTING THE LOCATION

CHAPTER II

A week-end invitation for cider making in the Hoosatonic Valley in early November would seem harmless enough, but from it dated our own determination to cease to be city dwellers. It must be admitted that the stage-setting was perfect. A twenty-mile ride on the evening of our arrival through the sharp clear air with a full harvest moon hanging high in the heavens, while along the way lights twinkled hospitably from the farmhouses that dotted the countryside. A bright crisp morning and a breakfast of sausages, griddle cakes and syrup. This would have been viewed with lack-luster eye in our overheated city apartment but was somehow just right in this fireplace heated country room with a tang of chill in the far corners.

Later we were to find that plenty of November nights could be raw and stormy; that fireplaces could sulk and give out such grudging heat as to make the room wholly chill. But none of this appeared on that memorable week-end. It waxed warm enough at midday for all of the outdoor pleasures that the country affords. We were in congenial company and evening found us with a sense of peace and well-being that more than balanced the loss of a theatre or dinner party in town. We were guilty of the usual platitudes about "God's country and the normal way to live" and knew they were that but didn't care.

However, there was no rushing around to get a place right across the way. A whole winter went by, pleasantly spent doing the usual things. Then came spring, a season that not even the city can wholly neutralize. There were a number of seemingly aimless Sunday trips beyond the urban fringe. There was considerable casual comment on various houses in attractive settings. One charming old place ideally located on a back road proved to be part of a water-shed reservation. Another equally charming plaster house was "too far out." As we admitted that, we realized that we had joined that not inconsiderable group who "want to have their cake and eat it too." That is, we really wanted a place in the country but we wanted it near enough so that the desk of the very necessary and important job could be reached without too much effort. Also the idea of an occasional evening in town was not to be dismissed lightly.

Such humdrum items as railroad time tables were consulted. Having decided that the ideal location would be one in which the time required for train trip and motoring from house to station would come within an hour, we limited our search to that section just beyond the suburban fringe in Connecticut and Westchester County, New York. We had no clear idea of the type of house we wanted, save that it be old and of good lines. We looked with and without the aid of real estate dealers. We deluged our friends already living in the country with queries.

We found a disheartening number of fine old houses, located just wrong. There was a splendid, two-story brick house with hall running through the middle. But it stood in the commercial section of a village, its door steps flush with the sidewalk, and was hemmed in on one side by a gas station. There was a neat little story-and-a-half stone house with picket fence, old-fashioned rose bushes, and beautiful shade trees. It had once been the parsonage of the neighboring church. Unhappily the old churchyard lay between.

Now, we are not people who whistle determinedly when passing a marble orchard at midnight nor do we see white luminous shapes flitting among the tombstones. But daily gazing upon one's final resting place, we felt might, in time, prove depressing. Besides, we were by no means certain that our friends had developed the callous indifference of a young couple we heard of years later. Curiously free of inhibitions, these two people bought an attractive old farmhouse with a family burying lot located a fair distance from the house. The little plot with its eight or ten simple headstones was unobtrusive and rather gave an air of family roots deep in the soil, a quality all too rare in America. These young vandals could not let well enough alone. They uprooted the headstones and laid them end to end for a walk to their front door! They were considering the plot itself as a possible tennis court when outraged public opinion forced them to put the stones back. In fact, the general hostility was so marked that they finally abandoned the place and it was later sold at a distinct loss.

But back to the little gray parsonage; its location and the fact that train service in its vicinity was poor, were the two deciding votes against it. Another attractive house in a good location was ruled out because our car got stuck in a spring hole practically in sight of it. A mile or so of dirt road to the station is no drawback, provided it is passable at all times of the year. This one was obviously poor, even in summer. Finally a real estate broker showed us a picture of a modest 18th century farm cottage. We visited the place one dreary sunless day in late March, investigated the neighborhood, determined the time required to drive to the nearest railroad station, and bought it, all in one week.

In general, we are not sure that such haste is advisable. There were certain disadvantages that we did not observe; there were others where we turned a blind eye because we were infatuated with the place and determined to have it. Fortunately time has taken care of practically all of these. In short, we have come to believe that a place in the country is, like marriage, just what you make it. In both cases, though, one's emotions should be under control, so here are a few salient points for the searcher after a suitable location.

First and foremost, decide on the sort of life you wish to lead. Then pick your location to fit it. If you are not chained to a city desk five days a week but at best make only one or two weekly trips there, a railroad journey of two or three hours is endurable especially when a highly attractive place lies at the end. For such a person, the radius in which to look for likely places is much extended and the farther out, the more advantageous the prices. But for one individual so fortunately situated, there are more than a hundred who must choose a place near enough for daily trips to the city.

For the latter the ideal situation is, as stated before, an hour from house to office. That is the ideal but, in all honesty, we must admit that few attain it. The average country commuter is a born optimist on this point and will unblushingly distort facts in a manner to put the most ardent fisherman to shame. But figures don't lie. If the time table, say between Stamford, Connecticut, and the Grand Central, New York, gives its fastest running time as fifty minutes, it means exactly that. You may plan to hurtle through the air at sixty miles an hour to the station but traffic and road conditions will not always let you. Besides, what is the hurry? Allow twenty or thirty minutes instead of fifteen for a normal run of twelve miles and have peace of mind. That gives you an hour and ten or fifteen minutes between your house and the city. Add the time needed to get from the train to your office and you know what is before you. We mention this station trip of twelve miles as about the maximum for the hardy commuter although there are a few who take more punishment than that. Of course if the perfect place can be found only four to six miles from the station that is all the better.

Transportation is an all important consideration both as regards time and expense. There are beautiful countrysides fairly near large centers that are so hampered by poor train service as to be almost out of the question for the everyday commuter. Of course, there may be an adequate service or it may be practical to drive to and from business. The latter is not at all uncommon with the country areas near the smaller industrial centers. Here the fortunate commuter is free from exacting train schedules; a five or ten minutes' drive sees him outside the city limits, and another twenty or thirty may find him rolling into his own driveway. Smooth sailing between office and home depend only on a reliable car and good roads.

One should make sure the latter are passable in the winter at all times. For instance, are the Town Fathers liberal with the snow plow? Can its cheery hum be heard even at midnight if a heavy fall of snow makes it necessary? Does it come down the little dirt road where your modest acres are located? These are questions all commuters should ask whether their journey cityward is made entirely by automobile or partly by train. Further, whatever means of transportation are used, the monthly cost should be reckoned carefully. It is one of the largest single items involved in this scheme of living in the country and working in the city.

There is also the question of food and other household supplies. Granted one no longer expects to run around the corner for a loaf of bread or a dozen eggs that may have been left off the morning shopping lists, just how far away is the nearest grocer? Is he at all receptive to the idea of making an occasional delivery in the outlying districts? How about the rubbish collector, if any; the milkman; the purveyors of ice, coal and wood? Are there a lighting system in the vicinity, telephone facilities, and so forth? These last need not be deciding factors, all other things being equal. They are simply matters to investigate. It is then for the family to decide whether to do without any or all of them if necessary.

Besides in a wisely chosen location, these, though lacking at first, are soon added as the demand grows. When we began our own experiment in country living, it was with difficulty that we got even a telephone installed. Instead of electricity, our evenings were lighted by candles or kerosene lamps and our meals were cooked on an oil stove. Grocers and other tradesmen didn't even know how to get to the little area. Yet within three years enough other people like us had moved into the vicinity to warrant extension of electric service through the neighborhood, and a milk route, rubbish service, deliveries of laundry, food, ice, and other household needs were soon added. The Fuller brush man has for years known the way to our door and now even our Sunday newspapers are delivered, although we are six miles from the nearest news stand.

This brings us to the question of neighborhood, which is important. Beware of a place too near a small factory settlement. The latter is apt to grow and destroy the peace you have come so far to get. Besides, your property value will decline in direct ratio. We once knew a charming place set high on a hill with neat hedges, shrubs, and arbors reminiscent of England, birthplace of the man who built and developed it. The family that bought the property forgot to look down at the foot of the hill. If they had, they would have seen a large and efficient looking factory and could have read the signs accordingly.

The disadvantages of a country home located close to a hamlet inhabited by old native stock families that have degenerated should be weighed carefully. Such people resent what they consider unwarranted intrusion by newcomers and have many underhanded ways of expressing their antagonism. Of course, if these settlers are merely tenants and the region shows distinct signs that a number of city pioneers are about to buy property there, it may be a gamble worth taking, since one can always buy property cheaper before a boom than after it has set in. Also, these settlements are frequently located in the most beautiful sections of the country. Some of the houses are quaint farm cottages that only need a thorough cleaning and a little intelligent restoration to make them attractive homes for any one.

Again, some of the most picturesque and desirable locations are off on by-roads. They are much to be preferred to property directly on the main highway since they are well away from the roar of traffic; and if there are children or pets, one need not be constantly on the alert to keep them from straying off the premises. However, half a mile off the main highway answers the purpose as well as a longer distance and one must be sure that half mile is passable at all times of the year.

We have in mind one young couple who bought a place in Vermont. It stands well up on a hill and the view is worth going many miles to see. A picturesque dirt road winds a crooked mile up to it. Very attractive for summer but these two live there the year around. The snow drifts deep in winter, and early spring and late fall find the mud so deep that the average car bogs down hopelessly. Thus, they are virtual prisoners during these seasons. Of course that is an extreme case and even here the road can be made passable but only at heavy expense which must be borne principally by the householder.

Lastly, in selecting the locality for your experiment in country living, if there are children consideration of schools is essential. The ratings and relative standings of graded and high schools in various localities, may be easily obtained through state educational authorities, college entrance boards, and similar organizations. But even where the rating report is good, personal investigation is advisable. Certain social elements enter in, despite the sound and democratic principles underlying the American public school system.

For example, a would-be country dweller leased a house, with option to buy, in a very good neighborhood. House, location, and surroundings exactly pleased and it was a scant ten minutes from the station on a good road. The school system was well rated but the graded school for this section drew a majority of its pupils from a textile mill settlement two or three miles away. The children of the English spinners and weavers were decent, well-behaved youngsters but their speech was distinctly along cockney lines. Within a few months the three small sons of the new country dweller had developed habits of speech native to the English textile towns. Stern correction at home availed little and their parents abandoned the idea of buying in that locality. Instead, another was selected after personal inspection of the school to which the three boys would go. The new home is not, in some respects, as attractive as the other nor is it as convenient for commuting, but one cannot have everything. They are content and the small boys are once more expressing themselves with a New England accent.

In inspecting both the graded and high schools of a neighborhood that pleases you, the obvious things are the buildings, school bus service, play space, provisions for school lunches and so forth. These are tangible and can be readily observed. Much more important are the intangibles. These include the scholastic standing of the particular school; the pedagogical ability and personality of the individual teachers; and, finally, whether those who manage village, borough, or town governments, provide adequate school appropriations.

Schools that really educate children can be operated on starvation budgets but, more often than not, the quality of teaching suffers. Likewise the schools of a town reflect the capacity and ability of those in charge. To judge this, make it a point to meet the local school superintendent. If there is a parent-teachers association, a frank discussion with its leader is an excellent idea. From talks like these you can sometimes gather cogent information that neither superintendent nor member of the school association would or could put in writing. If possible observe the school while it is in session. The attitude of teachers and children should enable you to form an estimate of it as a whole.

In determining the scholastic standing of a high school, its rating by college entrance boards, the success in college of recent graduates, and kindred data can be readily obtained and will tell a complete story. However, under present conditions, there are some excellent high schools which pay little or no attention to college preparation because relatively few pupils intend to enter college. If this condition prevails at the high school your children would normally attend and your plans for them include college or technical school, recognition of it is important. A year or two in a good private school that makes a specialty of college preparation is probably the answer. But don't wait until a son or daughter is nearly through the local high school to discover this lack of specific preparation.

If, on the other hand, you do not intend to send your children to the schools where tuition is included in the tax bill, be just as careful in judging the private school. The term private means just what it says, it is open to children whose parents make private or separate payment for their education. This condition, however, is no guarantee that the quality of teaching will excel or even equal that of the free or public institution.

The private ventures are not under as rigid supervision as those supported by tax revenues and we have known of instances where the former were distinctly below standard. With a private day school having relatively few pupils and a tuition revenue only slightly above the cost of operation, it requires considerable strength of character for its owner not to gloss over a pupil's shortcomings. If dealt with impartially, these might mean that darling Willie would be withdrawn and sent elsewhere. Loss of tuition is the nightmare of the head of such a school. Hence, fear of financial loss, dread of disagreeable interviews with parents, or misguided leniency can have a very bad effect on the education and training of the pupils.

Yet there are small day schools and larger institutions with both day and resident pupils that give superior training. It is largely a matter of the attitude and capacity of the principal or head. If he or she is a real teacher and has good assistants, the children will be well taught, regardless of the physical plant. So, in choosing a private school, make sure the education it affords is worth the tuition father pays.

Putting the children in a private school necessitates one thing more. That is transportation. Sometimes a private bus takes care of this matter. If not, mother must be tied to a daily schedule of driving the youngsters to and from school. This usually entails a second car. Here, as with other matters, the initial cost is by no means all; there is the up-keep. This should not be overlooked, for in the twelve years between the first grade and the last high school year, it becomes an increasing burden as school hours lengthen and athletic activities become, to the children at least, supremely important.

SHOPPING FOR PROPERTY

CHAPTER III

For the first, nothing is better than newspaper classified advertising, particularly that found in the Sunday paper. If he would have a farm far from the madding crowd, there are the farm catalogues issued by a variety of real estate organizations. These can be most helpful if intelligently read. And the prospective buyer of a fancy farm or sporting estate will do best to turn to the advertising columns of those magazines where the editorial scope deals with that type of country life.

AN OLD FARMHOUSE IN THE ROUGH
Photo by John Runyon

In an hour or two spent so shopping, you can get first impressions of more places than you could possibly visit in a month of week-ends. Thus you can limit your selection of places to be visited. The cost of this novel method of showing property is met by an arrangement whereby seller and broker reward the picture house if the sale is consummated.

When you actually begin to look at property, a few don'ts are in order if you would steer a fair course to the country home you have in mind.

Don't expect any place to have all the requirements included in your mental picture.

Don't buy a place that does not appeal to you. Each year you will like it less.

Don't buy a bargain without finding out why it is below the prevailing price. Only too often it proves extremely expensive.

Don't disparage a piece of property with the naive idea that by so doing the price will be lowered. You only arouse resentment on the part of the owner.

Don't make a pest of yourself by too frequent visits to a place that attracts you.

Don't try to eliminate the real estate broker. If he really knows his territory, his services are worth far more than his fee which is paid by the seller anyway.

Don't lose your temper during the negotiations that must precede the terms of sale. You may lose the place that just suits you.

Don't expect to buy property with wooden money. That custom went out shortly after 1929.

If you can subscribe to these points, you are one of those who really want a country home and will eventually find one. Those who only think they do will stumble over some detail and then settle back with a plaintive, "We would love to move to the country if we could only find a place like yours." Castles in the air have everything, for imagination builds them; but those planted four square upon the earth always have certain "outs," even though you buy a perfect building site and put the house you have dreamed of thereon.

Personally, we have always wanted a little gray house mellowed by the summers and winters of at least a century. What we bought was a small story-and-a-half farm cottage with outer walls of weathered shingles, painted red. It is old. During the Revolution, a British soldier was slain in the very doorway as he came out with loot from the upper rooms. It would undoubtedly be a haunted house in England but here our eyes are holden and we have never seen him, nor have any of our guests.

We still admire gray stone houses of which there are plenty down in the Pennsylvania Dutch country but we are honestly suited with what we have. Its general outline is akin to the house we envisioned and the mellow tone of its red-shingled exterior has a charm of its own. True, the grounds are lacking in those little irregularities that enable one to develop secluded spots and charming rock gardens. No brook runs through them and there is no high point of land where one looks off to a brilliant summer sunset or hills blue with haze. It is just a pleasing peaceful spot and we like it.

In short, have all the preconceived notions you want but keep an open mind as well as an open eye. We know of two or three families that are absolutely satisfied with their country homes, yet are perfectly frank in admitting that they are in no way the type of house or setting indicated by their preliminary specifications. They saw them in the course of their search and, despite the divergence, recognized that they met their demands.

One of our friends had steadfastly insisted that his country house must sit on a hilltop where he could have a view, see the sun rise and set, and be cooled by a fine breeze on the most torrid day. He bought an entire farm just to get an upland pasture with the required hilltop. Luckily he called in an architect and was mercifully prevented from getting what he wanted. His house was finally built on a sightly but sheltered spot about halfway below the high point of his land. He has since learned that during the winter months the prevailing westerly winds so sweep that hilltop that heating a house placed there would be expensive and difficult. Also, these same winds would be apt to work havoc with his shrubbery and flower garden.

On the contrary, don't let yourself be stampeded into buying something that definitely does not appeal, just because you are a little tired of looking but are bound to live in the country anyway. Real estate dealers and would-be helpful friends may have rallied around and, after showing you a score or more parcels of land, begin hinting that you are hard to please. Possibly, but just remember that your money purchases the place and that you, not they, will have to live there. Two people once spent years looking for a place within easy commuting distance of Philadelphia. Friends and brokers became exhausted and fell by the way. Word was passed around among the latter that these people were "just lookers and there was no use bothering with them." One day a broker, hoping to be rid of them, showed a piece of property so unsightly and generally run down that he thought no one could possibly want it. To his amazement, they liked it, saw its possibilities and, after proper investigation, bought for cash with never a quibble over the price. They showed rare intelligence in restoring both house and grounds and are living contentedly there today.

Most of us, though, who really want a country home are of no mind to spend years looking for one. It may be that the lease on the city apartment is due to expire in a few months and one must decide whether it is to be renewed or not. There may be children in the family who are in urgent need of the fresh air and outdoor life of the country. Under such circumstances, it is often a real advantage to rent a place for a year with option to buy. One learns both the good and bad qualities of a house in that time at probably no greater cost than continued rental for a city establishment. Further, if you decide to buy it at the end of the year, the rental paid may apply on the purchase price.

You can thus have plenty of time to look over other property in the vicinity. Perhaps it may be impossible to find a house that really pleases, but you do discover an ideal site. It may be a fine old orchard. It may be a tree-shaded spot with an old cellar marking the place where a house once stood. It may be an undeveloped hillside. In such an event, you have the advantage of either building a house to your liking, or finding an old one and moving it there.

Be very sceptical about "bargains" in your search. Relatively few people underestimate the value of their possessions. Perhaps they are really willing to sell at a sacrifice "because father can't stand the cold winters any more" or "because we like to feel the place is in good hands." But it would seem more reasonable that father's declining years in Florida or California would be sweetened in direct ratio to the amount realized on his property. So look well for the real reason. The house may be unduly expensive to maintain. It may be so badly built that bigger and better repairs become a constant drain on the family purse. There may be something so wrong with the adjoining property that one must either buy that, too, or give up any idea of living on the spot with any comfort or pleasure.

Back in 1928, a man bought a comparatively new house and eight acres of land for a sum far below the prevailing prices in the vicinity. The grounds were attractive and the lawn well shaded with fine old maples. He acquired this "bargain" in the late fall without benefit of real estate dealer. In fact, he boasted of his acumen to a broker who had originally shown him several other pieces of property in the section.

"I told you there were cheaper places," he chortled, "and the owner gave me the advantage of the broker's commission, too. Come out next spring and see what a bargain I found." In late May there came a wail for help from the cocksure buyer. A few days of unseasonably warm weather and a strong east wind had revealed the reason for the bargain. Back of a wooded area to the rear of his holding, was a combination hog farm and refuse dump. The owner of it got little or no rental from the tenant farmer who carried on his noisome business but he was well aware of its nuisance value to his new neighbor. Here indeed was a situation requiring the services of that middle man, the real estate broker. The latter was a good business man and by using all his guile, he eventually acquired the hog farm for his client at a fair price. But even at that, the man now had ten additional acres that he didn't want and couldn't use. When the cost of the added land and clearing it of refuse had been met, his place was not the bargain it had seemed originally.

This does not mean that there are never any country places to be had at real bargains. It is a case of being keen enough or lucky enough to locate one. There can be a number of legitimate reasons why a piece of property is on the market at a price below its general worth. There may be urgent financial reasons why the owner must sell. In this unhappy situation he cannot be too firm as to price and will usually accept a sum actually below the market value in order to salvage a fair proportion of what he may have invested.

Another type of bargain is that of property that has only recently become available for country homes through the construction of a new motor highway or some other major development. For example, the electrification of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a concrete automobile road from Trenton, New Jersey, into Bucks County, Pennsylvania, have brought old farms in and around Doylestown, Pennsylvania, within an hour and a half of New York City. This condition has not existed long and Bucks County farms on an acreage basis may still be bought distinctly cheaper than in practically any other section equi-distant in travel time from New York.

Again, some particular place may be owned by an estate with a number of heirs who want their money. None of them feels inclined to take over the property and pay off the others. All are in a hurry to get their share of what Uncle Henry left. Eventually the property goes at a partition sale which is the bargain basement of real estate. Partition sales and heirs hungry for ready money are keenly watched by those who buy purely for investment and with the expectation of resale to some one wanting a country home. Hence the ultimate consumer rarely benefits. But occasionally the regular investor finds the matter of resale neither as simple nor as rapid as he had expected.