CITY HOMES ON COUNTRY 



LANES 



PROLOGUE 



THE INSPIRATION 



"True dignity abides with her alone, 

 Who in the silent hour of inward thought, 

 Can still respect, can still revere, herself, 

 In lowliness of heart." 



Wordsworth. 



THERE once lived a very noble woman who shared 

 with me the dream of a new and better life to be 

 realized on the soil, and who, in her own sphere 

 of action, did what she could to bring the ideal to pass. 

 For many years she w r as vicariously associated with 

 a great public movement that transformed deserts into 

 gardens and filled the waste places with homes. But 

 usually she came first, and, after her, the homes and 

 gardens. Hers was the era of the unbuilt house, of 

 the unplanted ivy and roses, of the untamed soil, of the 

 new hopes that struggled up toward the light through 

 thickets of sagebrush and mesquite and cactus. 



Often she found herself in poor frail cabins on the 

 desert claims, and often she mingled her tears with 

 the tears of lonely pioneer women who could not see 



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