CHAPTER XXXV. 



CLOSING WORDS. 



OUR ramble among the small fruits is over. To such readers as have 

 not grown weary and left my company long since, I will say but few 

 words in parting. 



In the preceding pages, I have tried to take from our practical and 

 often laborious calling its dull, commonplace and prosaic aspects. It 

 should be our constant aim to lift life above mere plodding drudgery. 

 It is our great good fortune to co-work with Nature, and usually among her 

 loveliest scenes. The artist, Mr. Gibson, has suggested the true character 

 of our calling by combining moonlight in the Highlands with the 

 gathering up of the crates for market. I should feel sorry for the 

 man who saw only the crates and thought solely of the market. 

 Would it not be better to " look up to the hills" occasionally, from 

 whence might come " help " toward a truer, larger manhood, and then, 

 instead of going home to the heavy, indigestible supper too often spread 

 for those who are weary and feverish from the long, hot day, would 

 it not be better to gather some sprays of the fruit portrayed, that 

 resembles moonlight in beauty and color, but whose mild subacid is 

 just what the material man requires in midsummer sultriness ? The 

 horticulturist may thrive if he will, in body and soul, for Nature, at 

 each season, furnishes just such supplies as are best adapted to his 



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