Show uncommon by JOHN BLAKE sense v 0 dell boll syndicate Sor service vice J just outside my window I 1 can hear a slight clicking every time the mem meter bers of my house your time hold turn on the taps in their kitchens that clicking reminds me constantly that water is expensive down here in this seaside cottage where I 1 am spending a month by and by when I 1 close the cottage a man with a key win will come along unlock a meter and take its reading then just before I 1 at am n leaving he will hand me a slip of paper which will inform me what I 1 owe him these boys on the maine coast are careful as they should be that no summer dweller gets away without making I 1 matters square with that meter one becomes acutely aware of the necessity for economy as the little counting device in the meter clocks off the pints quarts gallons and barrels that the families around here use an and d as the little machines click out their information I 1 become impressed with the fact that time has a value of which I 1 have been thinking too lightly why would it not be a good plan to meter ones time in the same way if every minute every hour clicked its message in my ears so that I 1 would know ju just st 1 how ow much time I 1 am using and just how much I 1 am allowing to go to waste it might be a good thing for or my bank account such as it is is and prompt me to put a check on the needless escape of the one thing with which aich we are all endowed while we live namely t time ime when one learns to budget that time to devote a part of aitto it to work and a part of it to play he is or ought to be on the way to an intelligent tell igent control of life which 1 ch as far as you and I 1 are concerned la is the time to us from our birth on to our disappearance from the planet it would help almost everybody to note now and then how bow the years are arc passing what we are doing with them and what we are getting out of them as they come and go As the poet observes odthe of the minutes we cannot strive to grasp them all but wo we can grasp and hold many more than we do it if we remember that every click of that meter means a second used or lost forever what our time allowance is we shall have no means of knowing but we can if we are careful get more out of existence as it passes than we usually do so when you hoar hear that meter spinning in the collar cellar or the clock ticking on the wall you will realize that your life is being slowly measured out to you keep as careful track of it as you are able to get as much out of every working hour and every playing hour as it Is possible and when it Is all over you will know that you have made the best possible use of a life which you might by heedlessness have wantonly squandered |