I 9 o ARBOR DAY 



. 



A FRANK AVOWAL 



BY N. P. WILLIS 



From Outdoors at Idlewild 



I SAID, just now, that I had not yet planted a single 

 tree at Idlewild. This is half a betrayal of a weak- 

 ness that I feel growing upon me; and, having been 

 reminded to-day of what I have once put in print 

 from quite an opposite feeling, I may as well make 

 a clean breast, and so, perhaps, get the better of it. 

 In our current of life we have eddies of these quiet 

 side- weaknesses a string of them. At fourteen 

 we begin to be secretly nervous lest our beard should 

 be belated. Whiskers pretty well outlined, there 

 awakens an unconfessed wonder and indignation 

 that the world does not seem ready for our particular 

 genius. Soon after, we are mortified that even our 

 guardian angel, reading our hearts, should know 

 how hard it is to smile with contempt because papas 

 do not think us "a good match." The struggle of 

 life comes ; and, with the current swifter and deeper, 

 there is an interval, perhaps, when the eddies of 

 secret weakness find no slack-water for play. But, 

 that past, we begin to be sensitive about our age 

 and our first gray hairs; and when that is scarce 

 over, there comes another feeling the weakness 

 that I speak of the secret reason (though scarce 

 before recognized and brought fairly to the light) 



