Buzzard's Roost 



piano and her daughter on the violin. This is what I call 

 ideal living. 



I very much regretted to say good-by to the family, but 

 at eight o'clock did so, and started for a tramp down Fall 

 Creek to Indianapolis, a distance of about fifteen miles, as the 

 creek meanders. 



"Across the amber meadows. 



And through the marshes gray, 



The sun a warmer yellow, 



Has chased the fogs away. 



The buds have burst their prison, 



For the Christ, the Lord has risen, 



And lives again to-day." 



Maly walked with me to Spring Valley, now near the 

 center of Fort Benjamin Harrison. It was here that he at- 

 tended my school. We sat for awhile on the stile and indulged 

 in reminiscences. Things were changed. Instead of being a 

 schoolboy, he now was a father and a grandfather. Then, the 

 old frame school house stood in a narrow valley between two 

 ranges of Fall Creek hills. Rippling by was a beautiful rivulet. 

 In front of the schoolhouse, across the road, gushed forth from 

 the hillside a spring of cool, clear water. In the rear of it were 

 a number of the finest beech trees that I have ever seen. It 

 was an ideal place for a romancer. 



"Nestling within the outskirts of the wood 



A quaint old fashioned district school house stood. 



The morning sunbeams glimmered on the floor 



So pure and warm and bright, and through the door 



The happy song of birds and bee 



Commingled with the brook's melody." 



The old schoolhouse had been replaced with a bare brick 

 structure. Not a vine upon it or about it, and now it was go- 

 ing to decay. The great old beeches had been cut down, and 

 this was true of most of the surrounding forest. The hill from 

 which the spring had gushed forth had been dug away for the 

 gravel that was in it, and this had destroyed the spring. The 

 rippling rivulet seemed to have lost its music. It was utter 

 desolation and enough to make one's heart ache. 



