It seemed to me for a few glorious moments that I had
only to tell them of the wonders in our country, the pleasant,
quiet roads, the comfortable farmhouses, the fertile fields, and
the wooded hills--and, poof! all this crowded poverty would
dissolve and disappear, and they would all come to the country
and be as happy as I was.
I remember how, once in my life, I wasted untold energy trying to
make over my dearest friends. There was Harriet, for example,
dear, serious, practical Harriet. I used to be fretted by the way
she was forever trying to clip my wing feathers--I suppose to
keep me close to the quiet and friendly and unadventurous roost!
We come by such a long, long road, sometimes, to the acceptance
of our nearest friends for exactly what they are. Because we are
so fond of them we try to make them over to suit some curious
ideal of perfection of our own--until one day we suddenly laugh
aloud at our own absurdity (knowing that they are probably trying
as hard to reconstruct us as we are to reconstruct them) and
thereafter we try no more to change them, we just love 'em and
enjoy 'em!
Some such psychological process went on in my consciousness that
morning. As I walked briskly through the streets I began to look
out more broadly around me.
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