OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



of the Avenue cannot dash through them with 

 his equipage. There are no patches of choice 

 exotics upon the village green— possibly not 

 even a serpentine path ; no fountain, I am sure, 

 that shows the spasmodic gush of the city 

 fountains. And yet the name— Village 

 Green, is, somehow, tenderly cherished ; it ral- 

 lies to my thought a great cycle of rural mem- 

 ories belonging to song, to childhood, to story 

 and to travel — wherein I see, in bountiful pro- 

 cession, broad-armed elms, dancing peasants, 

 flocks of snowy geese, shadows of church 

 spires, boys with satchels, bonfires of fallen 

 leaves, militia "trainings," and some irate 

 Betsey Trotwood, making a soldierly dash at 

 intruding donkeys. It is quite possible that 

 these ill-assorted memories may confound pub- 

 lic and private Greens, as well as English and 

 American, but all have their spring in that 

 good old name of the Village Green. I hope 

 that it is not a strange name, and that it will 

 never grow strange while grass is green, and 

 villages are founded. 



In old days of stage-coach travel, one came, 

 after a tedious, lumbering drag over hills, and 

 through swampy flats, (where, if season 

 favored, wild grape-vines, or white azaleas, 

 tossed their rich fragrance into coach win- 



154 



