FRANKNESS AND GARDENING 205 



the everlasting pity of a city childhood. Creature com- 

 forts may be had and human friends, but where is the 

 vista that reaches under the trees and through the long 

 meadow-grass where the red-gold lily bells tinkle, up 

 the brook bed to the great flat mossy rock, beneath 

 which is the door to fairyland, the spotted turtle being 

 warder. Fairyland, the country of eternal youth and 

 possibility ! 



I wouldn't give up the fairies that I once knew and 

 peopled the solemn woods with down in grandfather's 

 Virginia home for a fortune, and even now, any day, 

 I can put my ear to the earth, like Tommy-Anne, and 

 hear the grass grow. It occurred to me yesterday that 

 the Infant, in age, temperament, and heredity, is suited 

 to be a companion for your Richard. Could you not 

 bring him down with you before the summer is over? 

 Though, as the unlike sometimes agree best, Ian and she 

 might be more compatible, so bring them both and we 

 will turn the trio loose in the meadows of Opal Farm 

 with a mite of a Shetland pony that The Man from 

 Everywhere has recently bestowed upon the Infant 

 crazy, extravagant man ! What we shall do with it in 

 winter I do not know, as we cannot yet run into the ex- 

 pense of keeping such live stock. But why bother? 

 it is only midsummer now, grazing is plentiful and seems 



