COMMUTER'S WIFE 135 



was a reprieve granted to autumn by summer in 

 honour of my birthday, we crossed the open square 

 and followed the line of the cart track down the 

 field among the trees, until it wound in and out like a 

 cowpath. 



"We might," I suggested, "use this cart track 

 as a walk through this short stretch of smooth 

 ground and end it where the bushes and trees begin, 

 continuing the beds of hardy flowers beside it. 

 Some day perhaps we will have this old wood lot 

 ploughed up and cultivated." 



" Cultivated ? No," said Evan, as if an inspira- 

 tion had seized him, pointing over the half-dozen 

 acres where the children of the ancient wood in the 

 shape of second growth hemlock, maples, a few 

 beeches and red oaks mingled with dogwood, cornel, 

 bayberry, sweet fern, and hazel bushes, and the 

 dry yellow fronds of the cinnamon and bleached 

 hay-scented ferns grew amid a maze of seeded 

 asters and goldenrods that still showed here and 

 there a fresh spray of yellow. " No, this shall be 

 your wild garden. A strip of a made path here 

 until it curves under those hemlocks, then merely 

 a grass trail of a lawn mower's width running where 

 you will, and to be varied according to mood, until 

 it reaches the bars where we will have a bench and 



