THE EDGE OF NIGHT 71 



Payne had it, and where many another of us has 

 it. He had it in a tree, too, — in a hickory tree, 

 this one that dwelt by my house ; he had it in an 

 apple tree, that one yonder across the meadow. 



"East, west, 

 Hame's best," 



croaked our tree-toad in a tremulous, plaintive 

 minor that wakened memories in the vague twi- 

 light of more old, unhappy, far-off things than any 

 other voice I ever knew. 



These two tree-toads could not have been in- 

 duced to trade houses, the hickory for the apple, 

 because a house to a toad means home, and a 

 home is never in the market. There are many 

 more houses in the land than homes. Most of 

 us are only real-estate dealers. Many of us have 

 never had a home ; and none of us has ever had 

 more than one. There can be but one — mine 

 — and that has always been, must always be, as 

 imperishable as memory, and as far beyond all 

 barter as the gates of the sunset are beyond my 

 horizon's picket fence of pines. 



The toad seems to feel it all, but feels it whole, 

 not analyzed and itemized as a memory. Here 

 in the hickory for four years (for seven, I am 



