SITES OF FORMER CABINS. 149 



withered and useless their blooming will not 

 have been in vain. Indeed so necessary are 

 they that each seed which in the future pro- 

 duces a clump of wild hydrangea will also pro- 

 duce other ray flowers like those which brought 

 about indirectly its own fertilization. These 

 neutral flowers may be likened to the great poets 

 and musicians, the artists and actors among 

 humans. They create not wealth, they produce 

 no food or build no shelter. Diversion only for 

 the toilers of the earth they yield. Unto them, 

 however, those toilers give plaudits due, for by 

 them their own sojourn here on earth is made 

 the more enjoyable. 



Strange as it may seem, houses were more 

 plentiful in the country hereabouts a half cen- 

 tury ago than now. But few have been built 

 along the roadways since then, or if built they, 

 for the most part, occupy the sites of old ones. 

 Many log cabins and rude frame houses were 

 then scattered over the land, usually close to 

 some spring, the houses being located where 

 water was handy even if roads were distant. 

 Many of them were the homes of the pioneers 

 erected when roads, except a mere pathway or 

 cartway to get to and from the house, were not 

 considered essential. A dozen or more of these 

 cabins I can remember, which were once inhab- 

 ited, yet to-day nearly every vestige of each has 

 vanished. Three or four of them have in time 



