236 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



of originality or picturesqueness as our 

 honest, thoroughbred, rustic New Englander 

 may challenge the world to equal. These 

 can be no workers for charity, I conclude ; 

 and when I inquire of a man who overtakes 

 me on the road (with an invitation to ride), 

 he says : " Oh, no, that is Mr. Blank's farm, 

 and those are all his hired men. He is 

 about the richest man in Bethlehem." So 

 my pretty idyl vanishes in smoke; the 

 smoke, I am tempted to say, of burning 

 brimstone. I have one consolation, such as 

 it is : the men are Bethlehemites, not Fran- 

 conians, though I am not so certain that 

 a swearing match between the two towns 

 would prove altogether one-sided. It is no- 

 thing new, of course, that beautiful scenery 

 does not always refine those who live near 

 it. It works to that end, within its measure, 

 I am bound to believe, for those who see it ; 

 but " there 's the rub." 



Whether men see it or not, the landscape 

 takes no heed. There it stretches as I turn 

 to look, spaces of level green valley, with 

 mountains and hills round about moun- 

 tains and valleys each made perfect by the 



