Our Summer Home

I was given this story by an old man on a bus. I didn't write it, but I thought it wonderful to pass on

I stopped my car before a magnificant mansion. This was the address given me by a friend who had invited me to be his weekend guest. Stately stone walls rose from well-kept gardens. The titled veranda was enclosed by marble columns. Within the walls were hung with rich tapestries and the floors covered with thick carpeting. I was dumbfounded by all this magnificence, for my friend's invitation had been to visit him at his summer home. I was awed sill more as my friend greeted me and showed me the kitchen, bedrooms and workroom in the basement. Finally I could no longer keep from exclaiming, "you mean to tell me that this is only your simmer home?"

"Yes," he answered, with great satisfaction. "Isn't it splendid?"

"It certainly is," I replied. "How much time do you spend here?"

"Each year I spend my two weeks vacation."

"I would like to see your permanent home," I said. ""If it is more magnificant than this, it must be amazingly beautiful."

My friend blushed and stammered in embarrassment.

"You seem" he began, "I spend so much on my summer home that I have never been able to afford a permanent one. I live the rest of the year in a room in a cheap boarding house freeing cold in winter. But it is the best I can afford after taking care of my summer home."

"But, my friend." I remonstrated. "Why do you spend this tremendous sum for soemthing which you can use for only two weeks each year?" "Why do you not instead provide yourself with a permanent home?"

"Ah," he answered..m"I have only two weeks vacation each year, and I want to really mean to enjoy them, even if I must be inconvenienced and uncomfortable the remainder of the year."

"My friend," I said "you are a very foolish man."

But when I drove back home, an inner voice kept asking me the question. "Are you any wiser?" I suddenly realized that I had been spending all my means, time, and strength in building and planning for this life, which is as short as summer's vacation days. And I had no provision for a place in which to spend the uncounted ages of eternity, after this brief summer was over. Was I, after all any wiser than my foolish friend?

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