The Fruit-Farm and the Young Folks 239 



I 



outs, stalling, or "What in the world is the matter 

 now"? — nor can the next generation ever feel the 

 joy of going to church in an ox-sled. Yet the great 

 things of life are not necessarily summed in rapid 

 transit. And the next generation may miss some 

 of these things; it may not be able to see them on 

 account of its Fruit Valley. Face to face with 

 climate and soil and itself, the next generation, 

 fighting for existence like all its forebears, will 

 become in turn the theme of criticism in the mouth 

 of its offspring; and as the day lengthens and the 

 shadows gather, it will cling, like its fathers before, 

 to the experiences of its own life, however bitter, 

 and like all its race will at last find herself a stranger 

 in a strange land. It too will have completed a 

 cycle, for in every Valley the cycle of life is from 

 the unknown to the unknown. 





