Neighbors of Yesterday

Where are the Americans?
You may look for them vainly.
They are remembered only by soap-box greybeards
In the village stores, and in farmhouses
Crumbling to decay.
In a little while the old life
Will be lost; we shall not remember
The simplicity and dignity
Of the men of bygone generations.
When the neighbors of yesterday are forgotten
Who shall remind us to set value
On the things that made us what we are?
Only so long as we remember — no longer —
We shall endure as true Americans.
We were founded in hard hammered granite
From the quarry of noble traditions;
Based on character, based on worthiness.
Dig deep, you new men and you new women,
Into the past — the most useful things lie there
In the dust of oblivion.
Dig them out — find the America that was,
Or lose in the World-Game.

Foreword

• Mis' Meegan Human Nature Ezra Brown
• Her Flowers
• The Hunchback Ben Enoch's Fools Transition
• Alec Hill: the Good-for-nothing The Backslider
• The Old Sitting Boom
• The Deacon's Wife
• The Mother Poorhouse Sketches Neighbors of Yesterday The Knitting Man The Coward
• Silence Davis
• Flint
• Union Blue
• The Sane Woman
• The Road
• Marriage
• “Old Salt”
• Simples
• Country Tragedy

• The Old Lumber-jack in Exile
• Jimmie Doherty
• Conservation
• James McBride
• Singing Sam
• Nance Hills Ill River Driving
• Mary Tamahaw
• Sabeal