A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



self. You cannot tell where the tlssuey corolla 

 ends and the wings begin. 



You can easily imagine the house. The big 

 doors open from the porch into a spacious hall 

 way, running straight through, and making a cool 

 vista, with more phlox and wild-grape vines in 

 the perspective. On Sundays Gabe sits there 

 by the hall table and reads the religious weekly 

 through his iron spectacles. 



This old porch is a spacious bowery and slum 

 brous vestibulum, always referred to by the 

 occupant of the house as &quot; the stoop &quot; ; always 

 designated by the minister when he makes his 

 visit as &quot; the veranda,&quot; and always dignified by 

 summer boarders, if they come from the city, by 

 the name of &quot; pe-azzer &quot; or balcony, unless they 

 are Southerners, and then they call it &quot; the gal 

 lery.&quot; But whether they draw their nomencla 

 ture from the Greek, the Italian, the Spanish, or 

 fetch it from Holland, they accept the big run- 

 around as a delightful compromise of outdoors 

 and in ; and in its hammocky days, as you may 

 imagine by the rusty old hooks on some of the 

 pillars, it wooed luxurious visitors to quiet dreams 

 with elfin orchestras. 



These old porches are like the prefaces to old 

 books in which the author spreads a broad invi 

 tation and calls you &quot; gentle reader.&quot; They 

 always hold out homely arms of hospitality, 

 though, to be sure, looked at from a little dis 

 tance, they are more like brooding wings. They 

 mark in the growing civilization the transition 



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