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our
growling at the landlord, we have been able to cast upon him many
burdens that we are now to take upon ourselves. Some of our sarcasms
are quite certain to come home to roost. The details of purchasing fuel,
of maintaining heat, of making repairs, are now to come under our
jurisdiction, and we shall see whether we manage these duties better
than the man who is paid a lump sum to assume them.

RENUNCIATIONS
Living in a flat, or even in a city house, we do not know, nor care to

know, who the people above or next door to us may be; and they are in
precisely the same position with regard to us. Mere adjacency gives us
no claim upon their acquaintance, nor does it put us at the mercy of
their insistence. Our calling list is not governed by locality, and we can
cut it as we wish without embarrassment. Choice is not so easy in the
suburb. There, willynilly, we must know our neighbors and be known
by them. Fortunately, in most instances they will be found to be of the
right sort, if not fully congenial.
The theater, too, must become rather a red-letter diversion than a
regular feature of our existence, if it has been so. Whatever enthusiasm
we may possess for the opera, an occasional visit, with its midnight
return, will soon come to satisfy us. Our pet lectures, club life,
participation in public affairs, frequent mail delivery, convenience of
shopping, two-minute car service, and freedom from time tables--these
suggest what we have to put behind us when we pass the city gates.
It is also the part of wisdom not to forget that, though the country is
alive with delights for us when all nature is garbed in green and the
songbirds carol in the elms and maples, there cometh a time--if we are
of the north--when fur caps are in season, the coal scoop is in every
man's hand, the snow shovel splintereth, and the lawn mower is at rest.
Then it is that our allegiance to country life will be strained, if
ever--particularly if we have provided ourselves with a ten-minute walk
to the station. Wading through snow against a winter wind, we see the
"agreeable constitutional" of the milder days in a different light.
We should think of all these things, and of some sacrifices purely
personal. It is better to think now than after the moving man's bill has
come in. Reason as we may, regrets will come, perhaps loneliness. But
the compensations, if we have chosen wisely, will be increasingly
apparent, and we shall be the very exceptions of exceptions if, before
the second summer has passed, we are not wedded beyond divorce to
the new home.
Once determined upon forswearing urban residence, a multitude of
considerations arise. First of these is "Which place?" Our suburban
towns have been developed in two ways. Some are "made to order,"

while others were originally rural villages but have come under
metropolitan influence. Living in the latter is likely to be less expensive,
and local life may have more of a distinctive character; but the husk of
the past is almost certain to be evident in the mixture of old and modern
houses and in a certain offish separation of the native and incoming
elements. The "made-to-order" town is likely to exhibit better streets
and sidewalks, to be more capably cared for, to be freer from shanties,
and to possess no saloons. Land and living may demand greater
expenditure, but they will be worth the difference.

SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES
With ninety-nine out of a hundred families the deciding argument in
favor of going to the suburb has just got into short dresses and begun to
say "Da-da." Already we see pointings to the childish activities that we
would not check. No one who stops to think about it chooses to have
his children play in the city streets or be confined to a flat during the
open months. For the children's sake, if not for our own, we turn to the
country, and one of our first thoughts is for the children's school.
I called on a young business acquaintance recently and found him
engrossed in examining a pile of college catalogues. "Going in for a
post-grad?" I inquired. "Why, haven't you heard?" he responded. "It's a
boy--week ago Saturday. Er--would you say Yale or Harvard?"
This was preparedness with a vengeance, to be sure; but almost before
we realize that infancy is past, the boy and girl will be ready for school,
and it is important to know that the right school will be ready for them.
Happily, the suburban school is usually of special excellence, and the
chief thought must be of distance and whether the