A DOG-FENNEL VILLAGE. 101 



along the pathways and about the country barn- 

 yards where men and hogs and cattle are wont 

 to travel or congregate. Elsewhere it will not 

 grow. I never see it or scent it without calling 

 up from memory's cells the streets of a little 

 country town where the May-weed held full 

 sway a third of a century and more ago ; a town 

 of less than a hundred population, far removed 

 from railways, whose citizens knew each other's 

 every act and move, and were content to live 

 and let live, sniffing the foetid odor of the dog- 

 weed from mid-June until mid-October. A 

 "dog-fennel village" it was, in truth, where cows 

 and hogs roamed freely at will, where the wishes 

 of man were few and contentment ruled un- 

 broken. And yet, to my boyish imagination, it 

 was the center of the universe, the hub of the 

 wheel of my existence. "Cow-weed" would, to 

 my mind, be a more appropriate name for the 

 plant than dog-weed or dog-fennel, for it grows 

 best about those spots where kine are wont to 

 congregate and ruminate. 



Peace, quiet, what will a man not give for 

 these two after he is forty ? All else is little in 



