OUR COUNTRY HOME 



wild and thoughtless road, where the rough grasses creep close and 

 the brown leaves dance at will. 



In order to preserve its natural and woodsy character and yet 

 keep it smooth and hard in all kinds of weather, a system of tiles 

 and catch basins was installed, the iron gratings of which were 

 carefully concealed under big boulders. Over these the wild 

 grasses and the moss soon gathered, and the squirrels adopted them 

 at once as dining tables and points of vantage. Blue violets and 

 buttercups, the vetch and showy orchid, the wild mint and pyrola, 

 the Solomon's seal and lady's slipper, baneberries both red 

 and white, sunflowers and asters and flowering spurge, the wild 

 gooseberry and bramble and hazel bush, and the dainty maiden- 

 hair fern, the evening primrose and the bitter-sweet, with countless 

 other favorites, were planted all along the roadway, on height, or in 

 hollow, in riotous confusion; and at intervals, winding paths, dark 

 and shadowy, led off into the unknown beauties of the forest beyond. 



