no conventionalities, where life is as large as the world and where the sweet sanities and intimacies of nature are as fresh and abundant as the dew of the morning.  Rather than the pavements, let me see the holes of the tiger-beetles in the dirt of the road, the funnels of the spiders leading down to the roots of the grass and their cobwebs spread like ladies’ veils, each holding dozens of round raindrops from the morning shower, as a veil might hold a handful of gleaming jewels.  Let me still take note of the coming of the months by the new flower faces which greet me, each taking their proper place in the pageant of the year.  Old memories of friends and faces, old joys and hopes and loves flash and fade among the shrubs and the flowers—­here we found the orchis, there we gathered the gentians, under this oak the friend now sleeping spoke simply of his faith and hope in a future, sweeter summer, when budding thoughts and aspirations should blossom into fadeless beauty and highest ideals be attained.  Let me watch the same birds building the same shapely homes in the old familiar bushes and listen to the old sweet songs, changeless through the years.  If the big thistle is rooted out, where shall the lark sparrow build her nest?  If the dirt road is paved, how shall the yellow-hammers have their sand-baths in the evening, while the half grown rabbits frisk around them?  Sweet the hours spent in living along the old road—­let my life be simpler, that I may spend more time in living and less in getting a living.  There are so many things deemed essential that really are not necessary at all.  One hour of new thought is better than them all.  Let the days be long enough for the zest and joy of work, for the companionship of loved ones and friends, for a little time loafing along the old road when the day’s work is done.  Let me hear the sibilant sounds of the thrashers as they settle to sleep in the thicket.  Give me the fragrance of the milkweed at evening.  Let me see the sunset glow on the trunks of the trees, the ruby tints lingering on the boulder brought down by the glaciers long ago; the little bats that weave their way beneath the darkening arches of the leafy roof, while the fire-flies are lighting their lamps in the nave of the sylvan sanctuary.  When the afterglow has faded and the blur of night has come, give me the old, childlike faith and assurance that tomorrow’s sun shall rise again, and that by-and-by, in the same sweet way, there shall break the first bright beams of Earth’s Eternal Easter morning.

[Illustration:  “The fragrance of the milkweed at evening” (p. 54)]

VIII.—­BY THE RIVERSIDE IN AUGUST