PALOS PARK 95 



Park is glorious then, for it is far enough inland 

 to escape the only blight of our splendid Michi- 

 gan the dampness that makes the leaves in 

 Chicago merely turn brown and wither up, and 

 brings mourning to the color-lover. And I am a 

 color-lover. 



Sending the children that is, our children 

 on by themselves, we tarried here. Our hostess 

 loves to tell of her simple life, and of her joy in the 

 ever-changing views from her breezy windows. 

 Summer and winter, year after year, she lives 

 here quite alone, cultivating her garden of vege- 

 tables in summer, and her garden of books in the 

 winter. Her valley is very dear to her and she 

 knows it well. Her eyes smile as she points out 

 the trees that mark the summer and winter limits 

 of the sun or as she describes the rosy tintings of 

 the dawns and the gorgeous sunset hues, or the 

 gray, mysterious morning mists that fill the valley 

 like still water, blotting out its trees and converting 

 it into a fairy, fleeting lake. She loves the winter 

 best of all, when snug and snow-bound, she looks 

 out over a solitude of branches bent under a 

 weight of snow or clad in ice armor that flashes 

 back a thousand colors from the sun as it crackles 

 and snaps in the wind. 



She is not like the old Irishman from farther 



