m's Mtnter OarDen 



of the semi-tropics, and the opportunity 

 to grumble is flooded with appreciatory 

 acceptance. To be sure, a little later, 

 when the tourists mutter and complain at 

 everything and everybody, we console 

 them with self-satisfied promptness, saying 

 that it is all a delusion, that in fact the 

 beds are not musty, the halls not drafty, 

 and that a fire on the hearth would be an 

 insult to a climate so balmy. What ! toast 

 your shins indoors, while in the open air 

 great beds of violets are ablow, roses 

 flaunting, jonquils flaming, and an ole- 

 ander hedge is winking full-flowered at 

 the sun? 



Sometime I shall have to thank a 

 meteorologist, the Weather Bureau, or 

 whomsoever can explain to me why it is 

 that up yonder in my Northern home in 

 winter if the thermometer in a room regis- 

 ters as low as sixty-four there must be a 

 good fire built at once, while down South 

 we sit out of doors at the same tempera- 

 ture without a shiver. Moreover, why 

 does one from the North, freshly released 

 out of a zero blizzard, have to muflie up 

 8 



