DEAD TREES LOVE THE FIRE. 149 



eon, and we cast off prepared for a good day's 

 outing. 



It sometimes occurs to me whether there 

 may not be such a thing as the cultivation of 

 idleness whether the love of idleness does not 

 grow by idleness. Many people have told me 

 that the normal man needs to work in order to 

 be healthy and happy, and by work they mean 

 money-making of some kind. This giving a 

 whole day to going after a quarter of a cord of 

 pine knots would be looked upon as a peculiarly 

 vicious idleness because of the specious attempt 

 to dissimulate. I remember many years ago, 

 when quite a young man, that chance threw 

 me out of business for several months, and as it 

 happened I employed most of my time in strip- 

 ping a superb orchard of its apples and barrel- 

 ing them for sale in the city. I forget exactly 

 what the venture netted me in money. The 

 apples were going to waste and I invested the 

 necessary money in empty barrels and freight 

 charges. The work, I did myself, beginning 

 before breakfast and stopping when it grew too 

 dark to tell a good apple from a bad one. Then 

 I went back to routine work at my own profes- 

 sion. But in after years the memory of that 



