MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



school system) ;— boys, lank at the first, in 

 short-armed coats, and with a pinch of the 

 vowel sounds in their speech; but they do not 

 linger around such a homestead ; they come to 

 the keeping of hotels, or of woodyards on the 

 Mississippi; the names of many are written 

 down in the dead-books of the war. 



Our money-saving farmer has his daughter 

 too, with her Chrysanthemums and striped- 

 grass at the door, and her pink monster of a 

 Hydrangea. She has her Lady's Book, and 

 her Ledger, and on such literary food grows 

 apace; but such reading does not instil 

 healthy admiration for the dairy or butter- 

 making; rosy cheeks and incarmined arms do 

 not belong to the heroines of her dreams. I 

 do not think she ever heard of Kit Marlowe's 

 song: — 



"Come live with me, and be my love." 



The faint echoes of the town in fashion 

 plates and sensation stories, make a weird, in- 

 toxicating music, in listening to which, in 

 weary bewilderment, she has no ear for a 

 brisk bird-song. No wild flowers from the 

 wood are domesticated at her door. I catch 

 no sight of sun bonnets, or of garden trowels. 

 Out-of-door life is shunned; and hence, come 



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