How much of the joy of childhood that we so envy comes from
their freedom from prejudice, the ability they have for adapting
themselves.
Martin was so distrait for a time that father absolutely ventured to
tease him a little, whereupon he turned stoutly about and declared: "I
have never denied the inspiration and value of congenial female society,
and the mere fact that circumstances have shut me from it so much of late
years makes me all the more appreciative of present privileges. Oh, Dick,
old friend, isn't it some credit to a man who has lived backward almost
from his birth, if, after he's sixty, he realizes it and tries to catch
up with the present? It seems to me as if the best things had always
been just within my grasp, only to slip away again, through unforeseen
circumstances, and my ill luck reminds me of a story and picture in a
comic paper that the boys were chuckling over last night. It was of a
well-intentioned beetle who fattened a nice green caterpillar for its
family's thanksgiving dinner, and the thing went and spun itself into a
cocoon the night before!"
Martin Cortright at times verges on the pathetic, but always cures
himself by his appreciation of his own limitations before he reaches the
bore stage. He too is taking a short vacation from work, or rather I
should say that he has developed industry in a new direction and become
absorbed in entomology, to the extent of waging war on the tent
caterpillars that are disfiguring both the orchards and the wild cherry
trees of the highways with their untidy filmy nests, leaving the foliage
prematurely brown and sere, from their ravages.
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