19'* PkLe * Mo&er 



have felt no surprise, but she had long given up ex- 

 pecting human beings. 



At last she broke her silence and gave us directions 

 for our return, leading us through a cornfield which 

 the deer had trampled down the night before, to an 

 old abandoned road, by following which we finally 

 reached our own farmhouse, pumpkin pie and bed. 



If I had not held on to my laurel all day perhaps 

 I wouldn't have fallen into the stream so often, but 

 the falls are past and the kalmia will make me happy 

 every spring of my life. 



The few closed gentians which now live on the 

 banks of our marsh were brought home from Con- 

 necticut after a wonderful visit to another friend 

 with whom we followed another brook, a quiet, Puri- 

 tanical, gentle brook which meandered through pen- 

 sive New England hills, on whose banks one could 

 walk at ease and meditatively, sitting down to rest 

 in the embrace of a watery arm on a lawnlike bank. 

 And we sat down frequently, for the friend chanced 

 to be a great author who had chosen this idyllic way 

 of reading to us the manuscript of a just finished 

 book. 



A chapter read aloud, then a mile of brook; an- 

 other chapter, then baked beans served on autumn 



