National Floodmarks; Week by Week Observations on American Life as Seen by Collier's (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill SOME HUMAN BEINGS MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE IT is not given to everyone to purchase the lost delights of golden-houred boyhood. But Edward Tilden, Chicago's millionaire packer, has found it possible to retrace the Road to Yesterday and to reclaim from eternity at least one halcyon day which, as a boy, he was denied. A half century ago a tanned, barefooted country lad with a big lump in his throat stood by the roadside near Delavan, Wis., and watched a circus caravan disappear over the hills. That was as near as he had ever come to seeing a circus. The red gods had called; he could not follow. And as his hopes faded away, and his visions of a sawdust ring and pink lemonade were buried in his heart forever, he vowed that some time he'd come back and "take every kid in town to the circus." How faithfully he kept his promise, 2,800 youngsters of his boyhood home can tell you. On a recent June day the boys and girls from miles around were treated to a circus, an aeroplane flight, and a picnic on Mr. Tilden'sWisconsin estate. Ah, and the bitterness of years was swept away by one look into their happy faces! They at least had not been cheated, and their wildest dreams had come true. That day will be written in their calendars in gold letters, while a correction will be made on that kept by a country boy fifty long years ago. SUCCESS WHAT is success? Sometimes it begins in apparent failure. A young physician went from New York to a small Western city to begin the practice of his profession. For a number of years he had been attached to a New York hospital, where he had unusual opportunities to study stomach diseases. When he reached the small city he found the community considerably excited because one of its important citizens seemed about to die of cancer of the stomach...