Ill 



E know that mothers love best The unlove- 



. . ., , , , linessofthe 



those children who give them hm. 

 the most trouble, and it must be 

 on some such principle that this 

 barren hillside of ours wins our best af- 

 fections ; for, as we cultivate its seemingly 

 thankless surface, while it disappoints and 

 resists our loving efforts, all the more 

 there grows in us a tender comprehension 

 of its hidden beauty, a wider sense of its 

 possibilities, and a greater patience with 

 the slow processes by which it is to be 

 restored to vigor and productiveness. 



We sympathize with its struggle for self- 

 adornment, poor, barren, ugly thing. The 

 cold northern slope comes slowly to life, 

 turned away as it lies from the fostering 

 sunlight. When the plain and swale are 

 bright with the hues of spring, the uncut 

 grass upon its side is still brown and with- 

 ered ; it seems to dread awakening from 

 2 5 



