The Abandoned Farmer by Sydney Herman Preston is a novel set in Canada revealing a story of a
farmer. Excerpt: Send our little Paul to the country! Even in her half-allayed anxiety Marion
smiled at the idea. Paul who had never been away from her tender care for one hour who had
howled with dismay when he gathered from[Pg 3] our unguarded conversation that when little boys
went to school they didn't take their parents too! Now Paul up to this time fortunately for
our peace of mind had been spared the ordinary illnesses and accidents of childhood indeed
so carefully had he been guarded that at the age of six he had never tasted unboiled water
unsterilized milk or unhygienic bread and although he had learned to walk upstairs by himself
had never descended alone except when an anxious parent stood breathlessly at the foot of the
stairs ready to break a possible fall. An ordinary child might have rebelled or evaded our
watchfulness but Paul was not an ordinary child and he was preternaturally anxious to avoid
danger and keep us up to the mark. His active little mind ferreted out supposititious disasters
with alarming realism until our nerves were unstrung by the constant effort to guard against
the possible calamities that he suggested.
