&quot;ESCAPED FROM OLD GARDENS&quot; 111 



that the old people seem specially to have 

 loved, swayed in the light breeze and filled 

 the place with their heavy, languorous fra 

 grance. 



Truly, it is a lovely spot, my old garden, 

 lovelier, perhaps, than when it was in its 

 golden prime, when its hedges were faultlessly 

 trimmed and its walks were edged with neat 

 flower borders, when their smooth flagging- 

 stones showed never a weed, and even the 

 little heaps of earth piled up, grain by grain, 

 by the industrious ants, were swept away each 

 morning by the industrious broom. Then 

 human life centred here; now it is very far 

 away. All the sounds of the outside world 

 come faintly to this place and take on its 

 quality of quiet, the lowing of cows in the 

 pastures, the shouts of men in the fields, the 

 deep, vibrant note of the railroad train which 

 goes singing across distances where its rattle 

 and roar fail to penetrate. It is very still here. 

 Even the birds are quieter, and the crickets 

 and the katydids less boisterous. The red 

 squirrels move warily through the tree-tops 

 with almost a chastened air, the black-and- 

 gold butterflies flutter indolently about the 



