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One of these occasions came on a Christmas night. Snow covered the ground. Somewhere along the five-mile road one of the boys fell from one of the wagons, unnoticed. His absence was not discovered until they reached The Training School. Merri, at once and alone, started back to find him. The boy might be hurt. There was no fun for Merri with one of his boys missing, hurt or otherwise. Several miles back he found the boy's trail leading off into the woods. He followed it as it wove in and out through the trees and brush. Evidently the boy was wandering aimlessly, lost in the Scrub. Presently he heard singing -- a Christmas carol coming from the depths of the woods. He found the boy sitting contentedly on a log. The song stopped as Merri pushed his way through the undergrowth.

"Hello, Boss," was the greeting.

"Hello, John, what are you doing in here?" was the relieved reply. "How'd you get here?"

"I fell out'a the wagon an' got lost."

"Hurt?"

"No jus' lost. I knowed you'd find me an' I bin waitin'."

"Well, come on then. Maybe we can get back before the show's over."

A simple, child faith, unafraid in the cold and snow and woods, knowing that "The Boss" would be along presently.

As the Colony grew in numbers they developed their own amusements. Parties, games, indoor and outdoor, a store day of their own, their own Sunday assembly, singing, recitations, holiday celebrations. But on special occasions, such as the Christmas play, they visit the School. For the most of them the limits of the thirteen hundred acre tract comprise their world. It is here they largely create for themselves all of the necessities of their lives under a guidance and protection they could not find in the great outer world.

Several years ago the Colony reached its full quota of boys. Wisely the number was set at one hundred. In years their ages run from twenty to sixty; in mental years from two to twelve. Each boy has his place in the Colony world; his duties and responsibilities gauged to his capacity to carry them. A dairy herd of sixty pure bred and registered cows, with modern dairy equipment; three hundred acres of cleared and cultivated land; bearing orchards; a piggery for from three to five hundred pigs; a dam across Menantico Creek, which impounds a thousand acres of water and forms Menantico Lake for fishing, swimming, skating, boating, irrigation and domestic use; three one-story concrete cottages two of which provide comfortable living quarters for fifty boys each, the third a service building with kitchen and dining rooms for all of the boys and employees; a house for Merri and his wife; ample barns, shop buildings and sheds; storage houses for crops; a hydro-electric plant made possible by the dam and the lake it has created, which will furnish light and power sufficient for the needs of the Colony; roads, lawns and flowers and an athletic field. These, and other accomplishments, have all been made possible and are carried on by the supervised labor of these boy-men. Truly it has been a remarkable achievement viewed only from a material standpoint. But this is of less moment than the creation of a separate world on thirteen hundred unfenced acres of land, with an atmosphere in which these under-privileged and underrated boys lead contented and useful lives.

Edward R. Johnstone, Director of The Training School, dreamed the dream of the Colony. It was given to Mr. Merithew to interpret the dream and to bring it to pass. The vision has grown with the years -- is still growing -- and it is still "Merri" who animates and materializes it. Ambition will not be satisfied, duty done, or the vision ended and complete until the last acre of the Scrub has been cleared; more and richer milk produced by his cows; finer melons grown; better and larger pigs raised; more and better garden stuff produced for his own boys and the children of The Training School; the bearing of orchards and vineyards increased and improved; insect pests destroyed; plant diseases studied and eradicated; (as was done at the Colony with the destructive black rot in sweet potatoes after years of experiment, giving to the Colony and its neighboring farmers a plant immune to that disease and to the Colony boys a 1931 crop of 5,800 bushels first grade sweet potatoes from thirteen acres.) All of these, and others, his boys will do. In the doing they will find for themselves greater usefulness and happiness and this, after all, is the soul of the vision.

These boy-men have been handicapped for life, through no fault of their own, by some unknown or ignored mistake in birth or breeding. Their own plane of life is a lowly one. To raise them above that plane would bring to them disaster and unhappiness. The Colony is built on their plane, kept there, for them. Yet, in their lowly sphere, they are working with the best, only the best strains in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, in a constant effort to make the best better. They are succeeding. Their hands are doing the work.